Packalicious community continues to build the future of sustainable packaging

“Curiosity! Curiosity about each other, about the future and the ways to explore and realize the future. By asking questions, listening and starting to experiment.” With this call during the opening of the meeting, Petra Veen, Knowledge Infrastructure Advisor at KIDV, made the link to the insights the community gained during the previous Packalicious Live meeting on Nov. 21, 2024. On February 11, the Packalicious community, consisting of companies and knowledge institutes, built on this by shaping ‘the how’. How are we going to achieve that future, what steps can we take today? Goal by doing is the starting point here: exploring by working together. 

Future Tables in actie 

Packaging systems for short chains of fruits, vegetables and dairy - guidance: Else Boutkan  

This future table is using a design thinking process to work on a sustainable packaging system for a circular food chain. On Nov. 21 2024, this group examined existing short chains and local food production environments in proximity to “residential-consumer” environments, but with scalable packaging solutions for fruits, vegetables and dairy. Actions the table wants to work on include mapping and bundling existing initiatives in EU and learning from local distribution systems. Technical innovations in the field of local processing and/or dispensing systems are also being looked at. Instead of Feb. 11, the participants at this table will meet online on March 25 to take this process further.   

New collection systems for different types of packaging - guidance: Patrick van Baal  

This group has outlined a future prospect that they are exploring further: A clean stream of rigid PP packaging (and PE flexibles) for possible food-to-food recycling. The focus here is on consumer sorting. Supervisor Patrick himself set a good example by conducting a mini-experiment beforehand: he collected and sorted all his own packaging for a month and kept it, to gain insight into his own consumption and impact.  

The stack of yogurt containers and beverage cartons served as a conversation starter on February 11 with the how-question: How can we achieve consumer-facilitated clean streams? At this table, sorting processes were mapped, followed by a working session on promoting recycling behavior. Attendees tried to work out how to instruct and encourage consumers to properly implement newly conceived sorting processes.  

To test their insights, the next step of this future table aims to conduct an experiment to better understand sorting behavior and consumer needs.  

Applications of renewable materials and end-of-life infrastructure - guidance: Marieke Lenders  

In the previous Packalicious meeting, participants at this table discussed the challenges and opportunities of renewable materials. Based on this discussion, the group focused on bio-based recyclable and biodegradable renewable materials. On February 11, participants elaborated on the earlier discussion and conclusions and worked on an action plan for 2025. In doing so, they also received two inspiration sessions: Hao Doan, Sustainability & Impact Leader at NOTPLA presented on pilots for closed-loop composting routes. Corinne van Noordende, lecturer & researcher at NHL Stenden presented on sorting tests and their impact on renewable materials.   

The focus within this Future table in the coming period will be on providing insight into the application possibilities of renewable materials for packaging and the opportunities, challenges and dilemmas of using these materials in practice. Both will be used as a basis for developing a vision for biobased packaging. The idea has also emerged for a number of studies that are in line with research that Biobased Circular intends to conduct. 1) Potential and the possible business cases around compostables, 2) challenges and solutions for composting, 3) the potential of bio-based polyesters. 
On the third point, a major study is already underway by Biobased Circular. For these concrete steps, the KIDV and Biobased Circular will work more closely together.    

Standardization and the future of branding and shopping - guidance: Gijs Langeveld  

This Future Table explores standardization of packaging in terms of product, format and material and designs experiments to incrementally explore what the supermarket of the future, which eliminates or reduces the need for information and branding on packaging, looks like.  

On February 11, this group dove into packaging standardization and the application of marketing techniques in a supermarket environment, such as Augmented and Virtual Reality, Display Screens, Internet of Packaging and Personal Assistence. Several examples were discussed, such as a Chinese supermarket where many things happen automatically and where there is inspiration around packaging or not packaging. The participants also attended an inspiring knowledge session: Stephanie Ribbers of HAS Green Academy came to talk about the opportunities created by consumer research with eye tracking glasses.  

Joska Sesink of Lidl attended: “It was very inspiring to let go of the constraints of daily practice and think about the future of packaging. By standardizing packaging materials, we can create a more homogeneous recycling (or reuse!) stream, which in turn leads to higher quality and more usable recyclate. For this we need the whole chain.”  

Actions for this table are to clarify the various studies that have been conducted or are ongoing in the area of standardization. There is also a need to further explore and clarify new technologies in the field of branding and what experiments are already underway. The creation of a Graduation Lab to initiate and evaluate research is being considered. 

Opportunities for concentrates for liquid product producers - guidance: Hilde Beugelink  

This group explores the potential of concentrated products as a sustainable product innovation. The focus is on developing innovative and sustainable product-packaging combinations and encouraging producers of mostly liquid products to make the switch to concentrates. As one participant said, “For future packaging developers this is a huge opportunity.”   

In this session, the group delved deeper into the topics of customer behavior and acceptance, production of concentrates and marketing of concentrates. Lise Magnier, associate professor of Design for Sustainable Behavior Change - TUDelf, gave an inspiration session on consumer acceptance of sustainable packaging innovations. 

The group worked on shared challenges by setting up collaborations around research questions and pilots. In particular, this table talked about setting up their own community of practice, specifically focused on concentrates. It also looked at opportunities to set up its own dashboard or website where campaigns could be set up to drive concentrates and make them known to producers or importers. 

Inspiration sessions and further elaboration 

After lunch, the future tables continued working on their action plans for 2025. To ensure further cross-fertilization between the different tables, the participants also attended inspiration sessions of other future tables. After all, the strength of the innovation routes is that they can be explored on their own but at the same time are very strongly interconnected. It is precisely the connection between these routes that leads to new, intrinsically sustainable packaging systems.   

The inspiration sessions at Packalicious were:   

Sorting pilots and implications for renewable materials by Corinne van Noordende, lecturer & researcher at NHL Stenden

Dissappearing packaging by Hao Doan, Sustainability & Impact Leader at NOTPLA 

Consumer research with eye tracking glasses by Stephanie Ribbers, lecturer & researcher at HAS Green Academy

Consumer acceptance of sustainable packaging innovations by Lise Magnier, Associate Professor of Design for Sustainable Behaviour Change – TUDelft 

“The importance of this community is to arrive at a plan of action that we can work on collectively, with all members of this community. By facilitating interaction between the packaging industry, chain parties and knowledge institutions, we see collaborations emerging that help us explore the future. Issues that can be taken up by Colleges and Universities in collaboration with the packaging industry. For example, three students from the HAS Green Academy are going to help us map application possibilities for new materials,” said Petra Veen.  

In the coming weeks, the process supervisors will work with all the input gained during the day. They will ask for reflection from the participants. Together we are working towards a concrete action plan for each Future table for 2025. In the meantime, we are also working hard to build a platform where we can share knowledge and inspiration with each other. 

Interested?  

Are you a brand owner or retailer, do you dare to experiment and collaborate and would you also like to be part of this community of leading knowledge institutions and companies, please contact Petra Veen, p.veen@kidv.nl. Together we will pave the way to intrinsically sustainable packaging!