Page 6 - Food & Drink Magazine April 2021

NEWS
✷
TOP HITS
It’s a wrap
A coalition of the capable and willing has created Australia’s first prototype of a soft plastic food wrapper made with recycled materials for Nestlé KitKat bars.
The project partners included Nestlé, CurbCycle, iQ Renew, Licella, Viva Energy Australia, LyondellBasell, REDcycle, Taghleef Industries and Amcor. Nestlé Australia CEO Sandra Martinez says the project was driven by the partners’ shared determination.
Food grade recycled soft plastic packaging is a major thorn in the side of Australia’s
into a food safe wrapper, but the required technology does not exist in Australia at scale.
Soft plastics which were collected, sorted and cleaned were then converted by local technology startup Licella into liquid Plasticrude – a synthetic crude oil consisting of 100 per cent recycled plastic.
The Plasticrude was fed into Viva Energy’s Geelong refinery where it was processed in the Residual Catalytic Cracking Unit to turn it into the basis of the polymer products created by another Australian manufacturer, LyondellBasell.
The food-grade propylene created by LyondellBassell was used by Taghleef Industries to create a metallised film, which was used by Australian packaging giant Amcor to create the prototype KitKat wrapper, before delivery to Nestlé which wrapped and distributed the chocolate bars.
Viva Energy executive general manager legal and external affairs Lachlan Pfeiffer said the coalition has shown there is a pathway to solve the soft plasticsproblem. ✷
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NEW MARS WRIGLEY
quest to build a circular economy. This prototype has shown there is a solution to the soft plastics problem.
A lack of collection and processing infrastructure makes it difficult to keep waste out of landfill and impossible to meet the demands for packaging with recycled content.
It took the coalition to collect and process soft plastic waste, turn it back into oil, and then create the wrapper. Turning soft plastic back into oil is currently the only was plastic waste can be treated to be turned back
SUPPLY DIRECTOR
Chris Georgiou is Mars Wrigley Australia’s new supply chain director. The company said Georgiou will drive the company’s supply chain transformation.
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ENDEAVOUR BUYS OAKRIDGE Paragon Wine Estates, part of Endeavour Group, has acquired Oakridge Wines as the group looks to bolster its portfolio before the demerger from Woolworths later
this year.
AUSSIE SOFT PLASTIC WRAPPER FIRST
A coalition of the capable and willing has created Australia’s first prototype of a soft plastic food wrapper made with recycled materials for Nestlé KitKat bars.
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PLANT-
BASED
MEAT
MARKET
Plant-based
meat sales
increased by
46 per cent in FY20, with many economic opportunities of the market still largely untapped, says Food Frontier.
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COMMERCIALISATION FUND
The federal government has announced a $30 million Commercialisation Fund to help new manufacturing products and processes become a reality.
US arbitration for Freedom Foods
THE Federal Court of Australia rejected legal proceedings brought by Freedom Foods Group (FFG) against Blue Diamond Growers and ruled the remaining proceedings must head to arbitration in the US.
Blue Diamond Growers lodged two claims in the US District Court and the Eastern District of California in September 2020.
It alleged FFG was undermining Blue Diamond’s market share in Australia for its own financial gain by using Blue Diamond’s almond base for its own competing products.
Blue Diamond said Freedom’s manufacture of other brands including MilkLab and Australia’s Own – which are not organic or private label – was in breach of their agreement. In its 1H FY21 results, FFG’s plant- based beverages rose 17 per cent
to $75.2 million with MilkLab sales increasing 50 per cent.
Blue Diamond is seeking roughly $26 million.
The companies entered a licence agreement in 2011 in which FFG would exclusively manufacture Blue Diamond almond beverages in Australia and New Zealand. It was amended in 2014, giving FFG permission to manufacture private label brands but using the Blue Diamond almond base.
Blue Diamond would provide rebates, which are now at the centre of the court action.
FFG alleged it was not required to obtain almond base ingredients exclusively from Blue Diamond and that the licencing agreement was a franchising agreement under the Franchising
Code of Conduct.
Federal Court Justice Mark Moshinsky rejected that claim and ruled proceedings be stayed on the condition Blue Diamond provides certain undertakings, including all sets of proceedings be heard in Californian Arbitration. In the Californian arbitration, Blue Diamond will accept that, in regard to the allegations it has lodged against FFG, sections 18 and 21 of Australian Consumer Law must be applied. ✷
6 | Food&Drink business | April 2021 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au