Making Dairy more, erm, care-y, Faerch have brough a fresh new circular packaging solution into the milk-based market. With its long heritage of innovation in material and design, the European innovator is introducing its new Eco HotPro product family, a circular mono-PET pot range for hot fill food applications, developed to allow high-temperature sterilisation (HTS).
High-temperature sterilisation is an important feature in many Dairy categories and requires packaging to withstand temperatures of up to 120°C. The new Eco HotPro Pot range is based upon Faerch’s proven and market-leading CPET technology, meeting these requirements whilst still being fully circular. Eco HotPro Pots are made from up to 75% of recycled post-consumer content, not compromising on food safety or any other functional property. After use, they can be recycled to new food grade products of the same quality in an endless number of lifecycles.
Plastics Roundabout
Legacy material PP, which has so far been widely used for high-temperature sterilisation in Dairy applications, is by no means circular. Like PS, for food safety reasons, PP products need to be made from 100% virgin material. Moreover, they can only be downcycled to non-food applications, contradicting the basic principles of a circular economy. PP and PS are increasingly affected by implemented legislation across Europe to support the transition towards circularity. Like in other countries, PP will be impacted by the plastic packaging tax taking effect by April 2022 in the UK, as it cannot meet the threshold of a minimum of 30% recycled content in direct food contact applications.
With the new Eco HotPro Pot product family, customers can choose from a wide range of shapes, cut sizes and colours, including white. Eco HotPro can also be combined with the unique, award-winning Evolve by Faerch concept, where no extra colours are added to the recycled content the pots are made from. This creates varying material colours, reflecting the specific blend of recycled content a pot is made from and allowing consumers to immediately recognise the circular nature of the packaging.
The launch of the Eco HotPro product range is just the latest part of a wider product development programme to drive the transition of food packaging towards circularity, and Faerch’s portfolio of sustainable materials and product offering continues to grow at pace.
