Packaging Innovations 2024: Barrier coatings, compostability and foodservice trends

26 Feb 2024 --- At this year’s Packaging Innovations trade show in Birmingham, UK (February 21–22), industry experts highlighted the latest material developments aimed at bolstering the circular economy. Ridding packaging of plastic through new barrier coatings and advancing compostability, particularly for the foodservice sector, were major themes. 

Garry Tee, head of European sales at Tipa, introduced the company’s range of film solutions, a new range of trays made from rice crops in Malaysia and cellulose netting, which is home compostable. 

“We have some new barrier materials coming out, meaning we can move into the high-barrier sector using the current Tipa structure. It will also mean we can create lightweight materials, particularly relevant for the snack food sector.” 

“Tipa is trying to move products from industrial composting into home composting, and we see that as a really positive step. The challenge for us is largely waste management. Products perform and they’ve been proven to work in many situations, so technically they’re very capable. In the UK, the challenge is ‘what bin do I put it in?’” 

Tipa runs the Compostable Coalition, a multi-stakeholder group including Futamura, Recoup, Vegware, Biome Bioplastics and the University of Sheffield, UK. 

Morro products on display at Packaging Innovations.“For us, that collection is the challenge. We’ve done some exciting research on how we can improve that, what the rate of contamination versus compostable is, and working with companies to reach the compostable grade (PAS100). We’ve proven this is possible.” 

If policymakers realize that compostables are a part of the wider solution, it will help bring recycling and circularity forward, asserts Tee. 

Breakthrough barriers 
Dr. Marc Rodríguez Garcia, CTO and co-founder of Xampla, tells us that the company — a University of Cambridge, UK, spin-off — used the show to highlight its natural polymer barrier coatings for fiber-based packaging. 

Innova Market Insights pegged “Breakthrough Barriers” as a top trend for 2024, noting that barrier coatings are now a key focus in almost every part of the industry. The movement away from plastics and toward fiber-based solutions has led to the challenge of replicating grease and moisture protection and shelf life without using plastic.

“Our barriers are perfect for providing a completely plastic-free option for grease and water barriers,” says Garcia. “Everyone is aware of the issues related to thin plastic coatings, which, in the worst case scenario, can leak into the environment and cause microplastic pollution. That is why so many companies are interested in natural solutions.” 

Luca Herzig, ATS-Tanner’s area sales manager for North and Eastern Europe, also tells us that the company’s natural barrier coatings — used for its banding solutions — help ensure that recycling processes are not disrupted. 

“What is in the coating is a secret, but it fulfills the task of banding the material together, only comprising 5% of the total material and can be recycled in normal waste management streams,” he says. 

Foodservice cleanup 
A key area in which fiber-based solutions are causing problems for packagers and F&B businesses is the quick-service restaurant segment, where scientific disputes over the impact of reuse and single-use formats are raging ahead of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation. 

Tipa compostable packaging.Martin Kersh, executive director of the Foodservice Packaging Association, says that all formats have a place in the system. 

“Reusables are only one part of the future — if you look around the show, you see excellent single-use solutions just as much as refillable. There’s a place for us side by side,” he says. 

“We would like to ensure there is no double counting, that no single piece of packaging is paying twice, and that when it comes to new regulations, it applies to everyone and that no one can wriggle out of paying the plastics tax because of some clever definition they’re using or that they’re able to sell a plastic spoon because they’ve called it reusable when in fact it’s no different than anything else. We want a level playing field.”

“The other thing we’re looking for is that the money that is put into EPR is used effectively,” Kersh continues. 

The promise of EPR was that money raised would be put into developing waste management and collection infrastructure, but the UK government is under no obligation to spend the money accordingly. 

“Particularly on the week when Birmingham city council says its run out of money and reducing bin collections. That doesn’t make us feel too good for the future. If we find out that [EPR money] is being used for other purposes, of course, we’re going to be disappointed. We want a really good return on that money,” he says. 

“This isn’t some social enterprise, it’s a business proposition. It has to deliver. I think we’re in for a long, bumpy ride on this, it’s one of the hot topics of the week, and it really is worrying.” 

By Louis Gore-Langton