Page 34 - Food&Drink magazine July 2022

FOOD PACKAGING
Packaging with1care
The latest campaign promoting New Zealand’s environmentally conscious and ethically manufactured food and wine
– Made with Care – also showcases the sector’s commitment to sustainable packaging. Kim Berry writes. TOM & LUKE
NEW Zealand Trade & Enterprise’s (NZTE) Made with Care campaign celebrates more than 40 food and beverage brands’ ethical and sustainable credentials across their operations.
NZTE’s Australia Pacific regional director Glen Murphy says the initiative reinforces values unique to New Zealand’s food and beverage industry, originating from its Māori culture.
“These values include Kaitiakitanga (protecting and caring for people, place, and planet for future generations), Manaakitanga (caring for others and showing hospitality, kindness and respect) and ingenuity,” Murphy says.
Murphy says the country knows its reputation for premium quality food and wine is not just about flavour.
“New Zealand is beloved for its lush, green pastures, fertile soil, and cool, clear waters. It is an environment that fosters outstanding, great-tasting, and nutritious food and drink from a place you can trust.
“We have a responsibility to ethically create and sustainably produce food and beverages in a way that nurtures and protects the world around us,” Murphy says.
Snack food company Tom & Luke is certified net carbon zero by Toitū Envirocare, and its packaging is 100 per cent recyclable.
At Tom & Luke, #5 polypropylene is used for the tubs and HPDE mono layered pouches to make packaging as recyclable as it can be.
Co-founders Tom Cooper and Tom Dorman say the packaging chosen was because of the infrastructure investment and technology advances in flexible recycling, and where they feel the industry is progressing.
“We decided to use and align with advancements in mechanical and chemical recycling, which are
fast approaching the packaging space,” Cooper says.
Cooper is regarded as an
industry leader on sustainability.
He is on the Sustainability
Advisory Board for both the New Zealand and Australian Food and Grocery Councils (NZFGC, AFGC), chair of the Compostables Sub-committee for NZFGC, and part of the steering committee for the AFGC’s National Plastics Recycling Scheme.
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PACIFIC HARVEST
Pacific Harvest overhauled all packaging of its seaweed range in 2020. Previously products were offered in plastic sachets or jars which were not recyclable.
Seaweeds are hygroscopic (absorb moisture from the atmosphere) so a compostable solution was not deemed sufficient from a food safety perspective. They opted for a recyclable plastic rather than glass, due to glass’s heavier weight, and therefore carbon footprint.
The plastic content per bag/jar was reduced by 40 per cent, and removal of zips in bags reduced plastic content a further 15 per cent.
The range is now offered in fully recyclable plastic jars or bags. Bags are enclosed in cardboard boxes which can be fed to worm farms or processed through
kerbside recyc
ling.
34 | Food&Drink business | July 2022 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au