Page 51 - Packaging News Magazine Nov-Dec2020

DECADES IN REVIEW | PKN 60 YEARS SPECIAL
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◆ Retail distributors warn manufacturers that an explosion in high quality, private label groceries will rapidly take market share from Australia’s top brands, following trends set by UK’s Sainsbury’s. Coles says it will spend $10m on its Farmland label and Kmart’s new Australia’s Choice label is win- ning market share since its release in 1993. ◆ In the closures market, dominant player Cormack Packaging makes a concerted push into Asian markets, exporting 30 per cent of production to SE Asia.
◆ A major debate rages between industry groups and environmentalists following indications that South-Australia-style con- tainer deposit legislation will be introduced in NSW.
◆ Emergence of smart packaging: New Zealand company Trigon launches an oxy- gen scavenging absorption pack, while MAP is opening huge markets for Australian fruit and vegetable exporters.
◆ Competition in the corrugated box market continues to heat up with a market share war between Amcor and Visy which control 95 per cent share of $1.5bn corrugated box market.
◆ Visy introduces PAL-LITE, a 100 per cent recycled cardboard pallet, claimed to be stronger than wooden one-way pallets. The release follows growing demand for plastic and steel pallets that could seriously chal- lenge the wooden pallet.
◆ Evian launches a crushable PET bottle onto the Australian market. At this time Evian has 80 per cent share of the imported bottled water market and is distributed by Schweppes. ◆ Amcor releases its Xitex tech-
nology for corrugated boxes.
◆ Visy announces its move into the NZ corrugated box market
dominated by Amcor (through Kiwi Packaging) and Carter Holt Harvey, with plans for a $20 million
box making plant in Auckland.
◆ Adhesives players are being rationalised and smaller players are either absorbed or pushed out. Henkel Australia acquires the NB Love Adhesives division of George Weston Foods. (Henkel later goes on to buy National Starch in 2008).
Visy Paper opens the first major manufac- turing plant built in New York in 50 years.
1998
◆ Packagers have a new tool at their dis- posal for improving efficiency – the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach to evalu- ating the environmental impact of packag- ing is the result of a special industry pro- gram undertaken by the Victorian University of Technology.
◆ Growth in the PET sector sparks a blow moulding boom.
◆ PCA assists in protracted negotiations over the National Packaging Covenant that includes the entire packaging supply chain. ◆ Despite lingering confusion over CFCs, from 1997 to mid-1998, the Australian aerosol industry grew by four per cent. Philip Fleming, executive officer of the Aerosol Association of Australia (who still holds the position today), says that invest- ments from Lever Rexona, SC Johnson, 3M and Aeropack, are a vote of confidence in the industry.
1999
◆ Amcor Flexibles Australasia has already moved into the next millennium with its $20 million new facility that resembles a food preparation factory rather than a flex- ible packaging operation.
◆ Major PET and HDPE injection and blow moulders are upping research into film barrier technology as demand grows for ready meals. ◆ Closures specialist Cormack celebrates 60 years in the industry.
◆ Companies prepare for potential supply problems at the turn of the millennium, stockpiling packaging materials.
◆ Carlton United Breweries’ Carlton Cold is the first beer in Australia to feature its web address on labelling and packaging.
◆ The covenant is launched – signatories of the National Packaging Covenant included eight governments, 13 high-profile Australian companies and nine associates. One notable exception, however, is the Northern Territory government.
ECO-FRIENDLY EMERGES
PKN adds ‘Packaging & the Environment’ to the features list, identifying it as the biggest issue facing the industry. We report on the PCA’s environment seminar which includes a lot of talk about co-operation between industry and conservationists. However, the proceedings only serve to highlight the differences between the two groups. Meanwhile, company adverts are reflecting environmental concerns, and the slogan ‘Reduce Reuse Recycle’ gains prominence.
1995
◆ Soft drink and beer companies talk about switching to steel cans, prompted by soaring aluminium prices.
◆ The Aerosol Association of Australia plans to launch a $500,000 nationwide TV campaign to combat the continuing public perception that aerosols still contain the ozone-depleting chorofluorocarbons (CFCs). ◆ Metallisedfilmtakesoff,withnewappli- cations such as wraps for biscuits, confec- tionery, soft drinks and fruit.
◆ A new $2.2 million state-of-the art recycling facility has pushed South Australia to the fore- front of international recycling and allowed it to clinch several million-dollar contracts to sell post-consumer PET and aluminium beverage containers to China, Japan and the US.
1996
◆ Contract packaging moves from ‘backyard operations’ into a sophisticated and lucra- tive supply industry as large manufacturers start to see the cost and service advantages of using contract packers.
◆ Fasson Dennison.
1997
Australia
becomes
Avery
◆ Carlton United Breweries does the unthinkable and launches its beer in a ves- sel previously alien to the substance – plas- tic. The company heralds this lightweight and unbreakable alternative as the future of beer packaging.
◆ Coca-Cola Amatil moves into manufac- turing and recycling its own packaging, building a PET bottle pre-form plant in Sydney and announcing plans to construct a state-of-the-art PET recycling plant.
◆ Southcorp produces Synthetic look-alike corks.
◆ Visy opens a $10 million Visy Recycling Material Recovery Facility at Laverton, out- side Melbourne.
◆
TAMPER-EVIDENT TOPS
Articles in PKN reflect a growing concern over tamper evidence. Coca-Cola Melbourne adopts
a new poly-vent
tamper-evident closure, an Australian first, and ACI’s Tampertel closures are applied to Kraft’s peanut butter.
www.packagingnews.com.au | November–December 2020