Consumer demand for green products has long gone beyond granola and tofu. Consumers now want products produced environmentally friendly from start to finish.
Eco-friendly. Sustainable. Call it what you will. But one thing is certain: we’ve come a long way from tofu burgers in “green” production in the food and beverage industry. And perhaps the biggest lesson of all is it’s not what you make, but how you make it.
Consumers today are demanding “environmentally friendly” food products, which involves calculation of the complete life cycle cost (including environmental factors) of the product. But it’s not enough that manufacturers strive toward green practices.
Consumers want to know through labeling and product certification specific information about their purchasing decisions, especially in terms of CO2 output.
In response to global warming concerns, and subsequent consumer and legislative demands, many companies are striving to measure their “carbon footprint” - the environmental impact of their manufacturing processes and products in terms of CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions.
A number of organisations around the world, such as the UK-based Carbon Trust, are developing carbon labels to display on product packaging.
The labels show the carbon production embodied in the product. Walkers’ potato chips and Innocent drinks are two examples of UK products that bear carbon labeling. But as helpful as carbon labeling may be, it is not a complete measure of the total effect of a manufacturing process on the environment.
“Green” manufacturing is about the full impact of an entire process and not just a specific outcome. Some retailers are taking a “big picture” approach towards environmental issues.
“We look at CO2 in terms of energy and in a broader context,” says Stuart Lendrum, print and packaging manager for U.K.-based Sainsbury food stores in Iggesund’s Inspire magazine.
“Besides energy, we look at transport, sustainable construction, water, and waste. If you look at just one piece of the puzzle, it can lead to an emphasis in the wrong place.”
“Climate change is certainly a key driver of our environmental policy, but our primary concern is sustainability,” explains Lendrum.
“For example, we strongly support the Fair Trade Federation, which takes a holistic approach toward product sourcing, and we actively offer our customers Fair Trade products.
"The interplay among environmental, social, and economic issues is very complex, which is why we work hard at always trying to see the full picture.”
One of the strongest trends in food production is pouch, or flexible, packaging. In the United States alone, demand for pouch packaging, including the non-food sector, is expected to grow 6.1 per cent annually and demand for stand-up pouches is expected to increase almost ten per cent annually through 2012, according to The Freedonia Group, a business research company.
There are many reasons for the popularity of pouch packaging. A foil or multi-layer film pouch is conducive to bright, eye-popping graphics while a clear barrier material allows consumers to see the actual product inside. Both qualities are important factors in brand differentiation.
Pouches are also economical for short product runs, which allow manufacturers to launch more product variants faster. And pouches are an excellent packaging format for the fast-growing convenience and prepared foods, and single-serving portion market segments.
But is pouch packaging “green” enough? In some ways, this is a moot issue. Visit any major food store and it’s clear that pouches are here to stay.
With newer applications such as microwavability and product extensions (mix and serve directly from the pouch), expect pouches to be even more ubiquitous in the future.
But pouches can be environmentally attractive. Inexpensive to produce, they are lightweight and stackable, which makes them easy to transport and store.
This means reduced transportation and storage costs.
So it’s not surprising that some companies have reported significant environmental gains in terms of CO2 emission and solid waste disposal in pouches over traditional packaging. Although pouches are a good “green” choice for production, transportation and storage, recycling the material has not proven to be an easy task.
However this looks to change as well, with at least one manufacturer who has now launched mono-material pouches.
Another development in “green” production is automated solutions and robots. “Green” production is ultimately an argument for efficiency — itself a function of product and process design. ABB Robotics offers several robots specially designed for picking, packing, and palletising — basic operations in the food and beverage industry.
Of special interest is the FlexPicker robot (model IRB 360, launched this year, replaces model IRB 340, which is being phased out).
The FlexPicker can help food manufacturers dramatically reduce product waste, a major resource and energy cost for food manufacturers, and increase productivity.
After installing the FlexPicker IRB 340 on one product line, crisp bread manufacturer, Wasabröd, experienced a 50 percent reduction in product waste and a ten percent increase in productivity.
Pretzel manufacturer Roland Murten AG experienced a significant reduction in scrap, with breakage of its delicate product going from 15 per cent down to 2.3 percent, which also allowed the company to cut power consumption on its main production line by some 12 percent (a savings of $17,000 per year).
As Walter Fuchs, head of production at Roland Murten points out, “You have to take more than just procurement costs into account. The savings in operational costs also need to be factored in, and in our case we achieved significant reductions in costs for staff, energy and wastage.”
The FlexPicker needs relatively little floor space and energy for operation so additional production-related and energy savings were also achieved.
Although the manufacturing, operation, and disposal of the FlexPicker itself entail certain environmental costs, which are carefully analyzed by ABB’s own sustainability criteria, production benefits to customers far outweigh these costs.
Robots are a tool for improving total efficiency and the heart of the matter when it comes to eco-friendly production and sustainability.
“We need to stop thinking about pricing in terms of what a robot costs, and instead look at the total cost of operations,” says Ben Miyares, vice president of Industry Relations for the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute (PMMI) and keynote speaker at the 2007 ABB Global Packaging Forum.
ABB FlexPicker IRB 360 is a green choice. Launched in 2008, the ABB FlexPicker IRB 360 robot is the next generation of the IRB 340. It retains delta configuration for superior performance, meaning less waste and higher production.
The product’s features are as follows:
- Handles payloads up to 3 kilograms — targeted toward packaging.
- 110 picks per minute with 3 kilogram payload — which means over 20 per cent improvement in average cycle time.
- Flexible formats and grippers.
- No downtime when changing from one packaging format to another. Completely watertight design for quick, easy cleaning.
- Second generation QuickMove and TrueMove motion control systems with automatic error detection system.
- Modified arm design: requires less floor space than IRB 340.
- Improved component design for even less maintenance.
- Uses less energy than IRB 340 - in ABB test cycle the mean power consumption for the IRB 360 (477 W) is 15 percent lower than for the IRB 340 (562 W).
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