Fully sustainable foodservice packaging

Lead­ing Euro­pean pack­ag­ing man­u­fac­tur­er Cov­eris has teamed up with sus­tain­able start-up Not­pla to deliv­er a range of print­ed, biodegrad­able and recy­clable food car­tons, using Notpla’s award win­ning bar­ri­er coat­ing technology.

Tack­ling grow­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty con­cerns in the food-to-go and take­away sec­tor due to lack of street and kerb­side recy­cling infra­struc­ture, along­side func­tion­al pack­ag­ing require­ments, new spe­cial­ly coat­ed board packs address both pack­ag­ing and food waste chal­lenges. Replac­ing all-plas­tic con­tain­ers or hybrid filmic-lam­i­nat­ed board solu­tions requir­ing a plas­tic lin­er for grease and mois­ture resis­tance, the new nat­u­ral­ly coat­ed board packs are unique­ly pro­tec­tive, biodegrad­able and recyclable.

Applied to sus­tain­ably sourced card­board, Not­pla Coat­ing is a unique mix of sea­weed and plant extracts that pro­vides a food-safe bar­ri­er func­tion, and which dis­ap­pears nat­u­ral­ly in 4–6 weeks at end of life. Unlike PLA, Not­pla Coat­ing allows the pack to be both recy­clable and home com­postable and is based on one of nature’s most renew­able resources — sea­weed – which doesn’t com­pete with food crops, doesn’t need fresh water or fer­tilis­er, and active­ly con­tributes to de-acid­i­fy­ing our oceans.

As the exclu­sive devel­op­ment and print part­ner for the new coat­ed board pack­ag­ing, Cov­eris have worked exten­sive­ly with Not­pla to deliv­er a ful­ly print­ed, brand­ed solu­tion that works in com­bi­na­tion with the sus­tain­able coat­ing. Using spe­cial­ist water-based inks for added sus­tain­able ben­e­fits, the print­ed packs are ful­ly approved for food-con­tact and offer an advanced oil bar­ri­er func­tion that out­per­forms plas­tic in most appli­ca­tions. Not­pla has also devised a unique com­par­a­tive test that shows just how rapid­ly Not­pla Coat­ing is bro­ken down by nature, in com­par­i­son to oth­er coat­ing mate­ri­als for food-to-go appli­ca­tions, while oth­er indus­try test­ing is underway.

Avail­able as both off-the-shelf Not­pla own-brand take­away box­es (at notpla.com) and cus­tom print­ed for­mats, through Not­pla’s exist­ing part­ner­ship with Just Eat Takeaway.com the new packs were also intro­duced at the Women’s Euro 2022 final held at Wem­b­ley Sta­di­um, mark­ing the first time that biodegrad­able food pack­ag­ing was used at a major foot­ball match in the UK.

Com­ment­ing on the col­lab­o­ra­tive project, Emma Moate Cov­eris’ Food-on-the-move cat­e­go­ry Direc­tor said “we’re real­ly proud to have worked along­side Not­pla as their devel­op­ment and print part­ner, mark­ing a major step in deliv­er­ing a more sus­tain­able future for food­ser­vice brands and prod­ucts. Giv­en the func­tion­al require­ments of pack­ag­ing com­bined with dis­pos­al chal­lenges in this sec­tor, the new coat­ed packs real­ly are the pack­ag­ing of the future, sup­port­ing our jour­ney towards No Waste through com­bined food and pack­ag­ing waste reduc­tion for our customers.”

Packs will be avail­able at Cov­eris’ stand (L721) at the upcom­ing lunch! show 14th-15th Sep­tem­ber, ExCel London.