Original source:: François Bellivier, Capexo/Freshplaza
According to an Ellen MacArthur Foundation study, «the ocean is expected to contain 1 tonne of plastic for every 3 tonnes of fish by 2025, and by 2050, more plastics than fish (by weight). In response to that environmental emergency, the Environment and Community Ministry launched France’s National Plastics Pact on 21 February 2019, which targets 60% reusable, recyclable, or compostable packaging by 2022 and 100% by 2025.
In the exotic fruit and vegetable sector, plastic packaging is a pressing issue that raises the challenge of developing eco-friendly solutions from the packaging to the labelling whilst maintaining the quality and traceability of fresh produce
The company Capexo is now making its contribution with two major innovations in exotic fruit and vegetable packaging and labelling, beating the official target by two years.
Innovation 1 : Exotic fruit and vegetable printing
The patented process, which Capexo owns for France, makes it possible to print food-grade ink on the skin of almost all fruit and vegetables, adding a barcode, price or any other consumer information. The innovation heralds the end of excess plastic packaging and stickers for exotic fruit and vegetables and more.
All exotic fruit and vegetables with a relatively smooth skin can be printed. Pineapple, for example, cannot. Grainy-skinned avocado can, but a barcode would not be legible enough to work properly at
the checkout. It is possible to print the sale price, however. The printing process also adapts to the fruit’s ripeness to avoid any possible damage.
The process involves patented, quality-tested food-grade inks — the same ones used in the pharmaceutical industry to coat tablets.
In store, on-fruit printing avoids the problem of differentiating between, for example, an air-freighted and seaborne mango, which have different sale prices, at the supermarket checkout. The process removes all possible confusion as either the barcode or price is shown on each individual fruit.
Innovation 2 : Biocompostable punnet packaging
Ready to eat fruit sold in batches, such as ripe avocados or air-freighted bananas, needs punnet packaging to protect it and prevent checkout shrinkage. To replace the plastic film and punnet, which are at best recyclable, Capexo biocompostable packaging features cardboard sourced from sustainably managed birchwood forests, wrapped in a protective transparent film, which is also derived from birchwood, and heat-sealed on a flow-pack machine. That makes the punnet packaging fully biocompostable.
Corn starch-based biocompostable films are already available. As they may not be 100 % GMO-free, however, Capexo rejected that option as a precautionary measure.
End consumers can throw the punnet and film away in their home compost bin, where they will naturally degrade in the same way as other compostable waste. Failing which, the packaging can be disposed of in a recycling bin.
Capexo biocompostable packaging enables ecofriendly product traceability with a batch number, origin, best-before date and all other information required by consumers using food- grade ink.
Motivating consumers
The innovations are aimed at the specialist and generalist food retailers amongst Capexo’s customers. The retail group Cora shares its story. Ahead of the upcoming legislative deadlines on plastic packaging and with the emphasis on CSR, Cora is rethinking its products’ packaging. Since November 2019, all our air-freighted Peru mangoes have been unpackaged. The barcode and consumer information — ‘product picked when ripe’ and ‘food-grade ink’ — are written straight on the mangoes’ skin using the on-fruit printing process developed and provided by our supplier Capexo with food-grade ink. As we also sell seaborne mangoes, that enables us to segment the product and avoid the problem of checkout shrinkage.
“For Cora, the innovative process enables us to maintain our mango sales and, like biocompostable labels, which are also used in our stores, that puts us in a virtuous circle and motivates consumers. It’s very positive,” said Sophie Malinas, Fruit and Vegetable Procurement Manager at Cora retail group.