The stone fruit season has reopened, but choosing the ideal packaging can be a bit tricky, especially if you want to keep up with the times and prioritize the use of a more sustainable and recyclable packaging.
Antonio Castelluccio of Pack System, a company from southern Italy specialized in the manufacture of cardboard, plastic and wood packaging, showed us some low-impact solutions for the stone fruit sector. "Our main sustainable packaging materials are the trays made of wood pulp or cardboard and the Ezy:Split hybrid trays. They are very suitable for peaches, apricots and plums. Packing trays made of wood pulp or cardboard are also often requested by apricot growers. After all, there is a need to minimize the plastic component in packaging. Moreover, they are easily recyclable."
In recent years, the demand for packing sheets made of wood pulp has increased significantly, and it looks like these containers with lower environmental impact will replace traditional plastic trays. "Wood pulp packing trays guarantee a long shelf life and fresher products. They are especially in demand by growers who sell their produce through retail, as the goal of many supermarket chains is to reduce the use of plastic material in their stores."
The newly introduced Ezy:Split hybrid tray is not used as much as wood pulp packing trays but the company is confident that it could soon provide a nice alternative to the existing ones. "The Ezy:Split tray has a variety of appealing characteristics, such as 45% less plastic content thanks to its cardboard component. Consumers simply have to separate the plastic tray from the cardboard support for recycling after use. The Ezy:Split tray can also be personalized, allowing growers and distributors to differentiate their offerings from the other products on the market and adequately communicate the characteristics of the packaged items. This creates greater added value and improves the consumer experience. Therefore, we think it will be increasingly used in the coming years, especially by customers who want to highlight their premium fruits and vegetables by communicating high-quality and distinctive features of their products to consumers."
We asked Castelluccio if the cost of packaging is still impacting the company's profits in a similar way as it had until a few months ago. "The current situation is very different from last year. 2022 was a year of continuous price increases, also for the packaging sector. In 2023, on the other hand, we are seeing the prices of raw materials and energy fall again, and that also reduces packaging costs, although they are not yet back to their pre-Covid levels. This is true not only for paperboard packaging, but especially for plastic packaging due to the significant decline in global demand for this material. In general, packaging prices are down 10-15% compared to last year, and that naturally impacts a company's overall production costs positively."
