In February, CHEP launched a specially designed range of Foldable Reusable Plastic Crates (FRPCs) to streamline the way vendors around the country deliver selected fresh produce to Woolworths supermarkets.
“The arrangement involves approximately 50 million crate movements a year deployed across Australia and New Zealand,” says Phillip Austin, vice president, Business Development at CHEP Australia.
“The crates, designed specifically for Woolworths’ supply chain, will allow fresh produce suppliers all around Australia to pack and ship produce in the same crate that Woolworths puts on their supermarket shelves.”
“This reduces costs and risk, while improving handling, efficiency and safety within Woolworths’ fresh produce supply chain, resulting in less product damage and better freight utilisation.
"There is also a significant environmental benefit in the reduced transportation resources expended in moving the crates around when empty due to the advanced design that allows the FRPC to fold down to just 39mm high.”
Austin, who is the executive sponsor for sustainability at CHEP Australia; and responsible for identifying and supporting sustainability initiatives for CHEP, says for existing products, it’s not only about a business model based on principles of reuse, but also about ethical and sustainable sourcing practices.
“CHEP does not use any timber from old growth hardwood forests,” he explains. “The timber used in the construction of new CHEP pallets is sourced from Australian Forestry Standard (AFS) certified forest resources.
"We are also able to salvage and reclaim boards from decommissioned pallets for use in the repair process to minimise the volume of new boards required.”
Austin maintains the platform upon which CHEP’s whole business was built, the hardwood pallet, is still the cornerstone of its business model. It is responsible for saving millions of tonnes of solid waste from landfills around the world.
“The pooled pallet is a returnable reusable piece of supply chain packaging. It’s a leaner and greener approach than single use, one-way pallets,” he says.
“The pool provides standardisation and optimisation of logistics practices around product movement, whilst removing excess buffer stocks of packaging that otherwise would be held by each individual company in each supply chain in Australia.”
CHEP’s approach to sustainability goes beyond the pallet. “For example, CHEP provides returnable and reusable crates to supply automotive components to manufacturing lines and provided durable and returnable plastic bins to the bulk produce sector,” Austin says.
“One automotive project alone resulted in savings of up to 3,575 tonnes of cardboard and waste from the supply chain each year.”
“Our second generation reusable plastic crate, recently deployed at Woolworths, can reduce the number of truck movements involved in reverse logistics by factors of up to four.
"And, replacement of cardboard that would otherwise end up in waste or require significant amounts of energy for further recycling results in tremendous benefits to industry and the environment. Industry also benefits from the shared use of support infrastructure to lower overall footprints (washing plants).”
While CHEP Australia has not yet conducted complete life cycle analysis of this crate, Austin says comparable industry ISO14000 studies conducted in the US for a major retailer show that when compared to single use display ready paper corrugated trays, reusable plastic containers, (when comparing 10 different produce items) require 39 per cent less total energy, produce 95 per cent less total solid waste and generate 29 per cent less total greenhouse gas emissions.
“We are also designing our new products to be ‘RFID ready’, that is, having the capability at launch for post production integration of durable RFID tags,” he adds.
“Possible sustainability benefits arising from RFID technology are recognised by many in the marketplace.”
“In other developments, we are currently bringing to market a multi-use beverage tray, where innovative design enables two packaging formats to share common supply chain packaging which will simplify the chains of our retailer customers,” Austin says.
In terms of palletising, Austin points to stretch films and machinery. “The CHEPStretch system incorporates machines, films and maintenance, he says.
“There is no capital outlay for customers as they are billed per pallet wrapped. Wrapping by machine requires significantly less film than by hand thereby reducing the volumes of packaging waste.”
“In many cases CHEPStretch customers have reduced film usage by up to 35% over their previous machines. Our focus is on increasing stretch levels and applying films that can consistently perform at those levels.”
“Much has been said about the potential of the plastic pallet of the future,” Austin says. “While there may be a need for these products in certain supply chains, we must not be hasty in looking to apply a quick ‘’one size fits all’’ solution to complex supply chain issues.
"In my view, the plastic pallet is, and will remain, a fit-for-purpose , rather than overall market solution.”
“The next major advance in our industry will be that supply chains and individual companies will start to address the sustainability issues inherent in one-way packaging in a very serious manner,” Austin predicts.
“I see the replacement of cardboard and other forms of one-way packaging accelerating. Major players in a number of industries have made the switch and this will filter down through all levels of the supply chain across multiple industries.”
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