Food 4 Future – Expo Foodtech presents the 7 trends that will define the future of the food industry
The food industry met last April at Food 4 Future – Expo Foodtech and Pick&Pack for Food Industry, which were held simultaneously in Bilbao, Spain, from 16 to 18 April to discover and analyse the challenges facing the food and beverage sector, marked by an inflationary economic context, new consumer habits that lead to new consumer demands, and increasingly demanding regulations regarding sustainability. With the help of 482 experts from the food industry worldwide, Food 4 Future and Pick&Pack, together with AZTI’s technological innovation team, have identified the 7 trends that will mark the future of the food industry in the coming years:
1. Geostrategy and inflationary environment
Europe has traditionally had a history of low agri-food inflation, something that has changed in recent years with a double-digit annual increase in food and non-alcoholic beverage inflation. This problem, coupled with the fact that many regions specialise in a single product, creates a risk of market fluctuations. To face these challenges, Food 4 Future has highlighted the importance of moving towards the European model of more efficient and productive farms, with greater collaboration from the private sector, something that will strengthen the competitiveness of these companies. Alliances between manufacturers and fostering resilience, innovation and collaboration are key to ensuring success in a constantly evolving sector.
2. New consumer habits
Consumer demands and habits have changed and now demand personalised experiences. Many companies are already using data and the latest technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence, to adapt products and services to these new individual preferences and the trend is expected to continue in the future. In addition, society has shifted and now consumers value health, taste, convenience and sustainability as key drivers and where direct sales have increased significantly. In this way, food and beverage firms are gaining market share, winning over the shopper in the current context of price adjustment, and forging robust competition for the rest of the players. New habits also include the demand for healthier and more sustainable foods, which has led to innovation in alternative foods, such as those based on vegetable proteins, mushrooms, algae, and meat substitutes.
3. 360° Sustainability
The food industry faces multiple challenges in terms of sustainability, driven by climate change, the efficient management of resources such as water and energy, and the need for decarbonisation to achieve zero net emissions. It is also focusing its efforts on the importance of minimising greenhouse gas emissions, optimizing packaging materials, improving eco-efficiency in production processes and encouraging recycling throughout the product life cycle. Suppliers are key in this respect, as are sustainable agricultural and livestock practices, together with more efficient food processing chains and minimising food waste.
4. New technologies
The digital transformation that the food sector is undergoing has brought with it robotisation and automation in production plants, but it is also being extended to other practices such as harvesting, spraying and pruning in agriculture. Other trends that will mark the future in the field of agri-food tech are precision fermentation, efficiency technologies, operational excellence, or industrial machine vision to detect quality defects, among others. The application of technologies is also key to guaranteeing food quality and safety, with real-time monitoring, preventive models, traceability from farm to fork, and smart packaging and labels to ensure the quality of pre-packaged food. In addition, quantum computing is gaining a great deal of attention in the field of innovation.
5. Healthy eating
Concern for healthy eating and lifestyle is growing, which is why personalised nutrition has become increasingly important in recent years. Companies are striving for healthier products without sacrificing pleasure and taste through new techniques. The debate on ultra-processed foods and the need for legislation will also remain on the table. This is an issue where there is no consensus and where there is a high degree of ignorance among citizens about labeling systems. Transparent communication on packaging will help consumers to make informed choices.
6. New packaging regulations
Packaging is also undergoing a paradigm shift driven by several interlinked factors: the advance of decarbonisation, the application of technologies for process optimisation and the adaptation to increasingly demanding sustainability regulations. The sector is currently immersed in major challenges driven by the new regulations against food waste and packaging, which will have an impact on eco-design, the trend towards mono-material, reuse, and the increase in recycled material, among other issues.
7. More sustainable and efficient logistics
Supply chain efficiency is crucial. Technology allows for greater production and volume, greater flexibility, and more traceability, all of which have an impact on increasing business for companies in the sector. For this reason, Artificial Intelligence, robotics, automation and blockchain solutions are already being applied to improve logistics efficiency in the food value chain. The use of robots and AI makes it possible to handle a wide variety of products, and even pack boxes with products of different types and sizes using artificial vision. The result is improved efficiency, saving time and increasing sustainability while reducing costs.
A broad coalition representing European beverage producers, material and technology suppliers, recyclers, NGOs and public entities have called for ambitious action to enable full circularity of beverage packaging1 in the anticipated draft amendment of the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive (PPWD), due at the end of November 2022.
The coalition believes that the upcoming revision of the EU PPWD is a real opportunity to take the right measures and accelerate the transition to circular beverage packaging.
For this reason, in their position paper2, the coalition highlights the importance of setting a 90 % separate collection for recycling target by 2029 for beverage packaging. This is to ensure higher recycling rates and recycled content in packaging, which in turn will significantly reduce the demand for virgin resources in a meaningful way.
Under a 90% target scenario3, the EU would recycle an additional equivalent of 92 billion PET bottles by 2030. This would mean that 2.6 million tonnes less virgin PET would be needed by the bottle industry from 2022 to 2030.
The coalition also considers that it is key to adopt well-designed deposit return systems (DRS) in Member States whose collection performance fails to meet interim milestones needed to attain the 90 % target. To do it effectively, it is essential to develop minimum requirements for any new DRS to maximise their efficiency. DRS has already proven to be an efficient collection system in several European countries by ensuring high collection rates of high-quality material for recycling. This is a fundamental condition to promote closed-loop recycling and deliver circular beverage packaging.
“This proposal, which includes a 90 % separate collection target plus the promotion of well-designed national deposit return systems, is not just about waste reduction and circularity, it is also about stimulating local economies, creating jobs, and increasing Europe’s resilience by securing resources and saving energy,” says Clarissa Morawski, Chief Executive of Reloop.
Reloop’s model calculates that achieving a 90 % collection target would make an additional 170 billion beverage containers available for recycling between 2022 and 2030. The non-alcoholic beverage industry supports this potential significant step forwards:
For Nicholas Hodac, Director General of UNESDA Soft Drinks Europe, this proposal points the way forward for reaching beverage packaging circularity: “This is a real opportunity to achieve closed-loop recycling and, therefore, we look forward to seeing the European Commission accommodating this proposal. Our sector could not be more committed to increasing the collection and recycling rates of our packaging to make it fully circular, but we need supportive measures to do it successfully.”
Patricia Fosselard, Secretary General of Natural Mineral Waters Europe (NMWE), believes that beverage packaging is highly suited to achieve full circularity: “Beverage packaging is highly recyclable, can be reused over and over again in high value applications and already delivers the highest recycling rates. We are calling on the EU to further boost circularity by laying down minimum requirements for well-designed DRS and granting bottlers’ access to a fair quota of their recycled bottles.”
Wouter Lox, Secretary General of the European Fruit Juice Association (AIJN), agrees that it is high time to move circularity forward: “Reducing packaging waste presents a huge opportunity for circularity within the EU, and as such, it is critical to get the PPWD revision right. The European fruit juice industry, therefore, fully supports the ambition of setting a 90 % separate collection for recycling target by 2029 for beverage container packaging.”
The European Commission has a perfect opportunity to drive the transition to a circular economy with a 90 % separate collection target and well-designed DRS for beverage packaging.
1The coalition agrees that circular beverage packaging is packaging (single use or refillable) that is collected separately at a high rate, refilled or recycled multiple times in a closed loop. When recycled, it should contain a high percentage of recycled material, originating from beverage packaging, thereby contributing to material resource efficiency and waste prevention.
2Coalition Position Paper
3Target 90 Report
Coca-Cola European Partners (CCEP), the world’s largest independent Coca-Cola bottler, has taken an important step on its journey towards 100 % rPET for its plastic bottles by funding CuRe Technology – a recycling start-up which seeks to provide a new lease of life for difficult to recycle plastic polyester waste.
The funding from CCEP, through its innovation investment fund, CCEP Ventures, will enable CuRe to accelerate its ‘polyester rejuvenation’ technology from pilot plant to commercial readiness. Once the technology is commercialised, CCEP will receive the majority of the output from a CuRe-licensed, new-build plant.
Once operational, CuRe has the potential to support CCEP’s ambition, in partnership with The Coca-Cola Company in Western Europe, to eliminate virgin oil-based PET from its PET bottles within the next decade. This will contribute to removing of a total of over 200,000* tonnes of virgin oil-based PET from CCEP’s packaging portfolio a year and support the transition to a circular economy for PET packaging.
CuRe Technology – a start-up, created and led by a consortium of world-leading recycling innovators and experts led by the Morssinkhof Group and the Cumapol/DuFor Group, with strategic partners DSM-Niaga and NHL Stenden University of Applied Science – will initially apply its end-to-end partial depolymerisation recycling process to transform opaque and difficult to recycle (ODR) food grade PET to high quality recycled PET (rPET) that can be used again for food and drink packaging in one continuous process on the same site.
Towards a Circular Economy
The CuRe funding from CCEP Ventures builds on existing strategic investments by The Coca-Cola Company to explore and support the scaling of ‘enhanced’ full depolymerisation recycling technologies in order to make a circular economy for PET a reality.
Depolymerisation recycling technologies complement existing mechanical polymer recycling processes. They have the potential to upcycle lower grade PET that cannot currently be recycled via mechanical recycling means and is instead currently downcycled, incinerated or sent to landfill. These depolymerisation technologies could play a role in significantly increasing the supply of rPET whilst also accelerating the transition to a circular economy for PET bottles by reducing the reliance on virgin oil-based PET.
The Coca-Cola system in Western Europe is working towards a future source vision for its PET material which will help remove the need for virgin oil-based PET (figurative future sources of PET in Western Europe: 70 % derived from mechanical recycling with 25 % from depolyemrisation recycling and 5 % PET from plant-based renewable sources, all while remaining 100 % recyclable*).
About CuRe Technology
CuRe Technology uses a partial depolymerisation process – shortening the polymer chains just enough to allow the removal of many impurities and to rejuvenate food grade PET to high quality rPET – and can be less energy intensive than full depolymerisation offering lower associated C02 emissions. It’s like pressing a ‘reset’ button to partially break down plastic PET into its component building blocks to produce a high quality rPET. Due to the modularity of the process, the longer term ambition for this technology is to upcycle all polyester waste streams including product to product rejuvenation of carpets and textiles.
Joe Franses, Vice President, Sustainability at Coca-Cola European Partners said: “CuRe is an exciting technology start-up with transformational potential developed by an experienced consortium, making it an ideal investment for CCEP Ventures. Our investment in CuRe underlines our commitment to supporting innovations that have the potential to drive growth in our business and our sustainable packaging goals. It also offers us the potential to access vital rPET volume that will help to accelerate delivery of our 100% rPET ambition for our PET bottles.”
As part of their joint Sustainability Action Plan, This is Forward, Coca-Cola European Partners and Coca-Cola in Western Europe have pledged that by 2025, Coca-Cola will: collect a can or bottle for every one it sells and ensure that all its packaging is 100 % recyclable and by 2023 will: ensure that at least 50 % of the content of its PET bottles will come from recycled content, accelerating towards its ambition to use zero oil-based PET in its PET bottles in the future, using instead 100 % recycled or renewable content.
Josse Kunst, Chief Commercial Officer at CuRe Technology said: “Polyester is one of the world’s most reversible plastics and should not go to waste. In the pilot plant phase of the CuRe process, we were supported with a subsidy from the European Union and the three northern provinces of the Netherlands. Now our ambition to create an energy-efficient solution for product to product polyester transformation will be accelerated because of this funding.
The support of CCEP Ventures will enable us to start with opaque and difficult to recycle food grade PET and take the first step towards our ultimate vision of recycling all polyester, again and again.”
*By 2019, CCEP was already using 60,000 tonnes of rPET in its bottle and has committed to using 50% rPET by 2023.
SIG is once again leading the industry on sustainable innovation by being the first to offer beverage cartons made with recycled polymers produced from post-consumer plastic waste.
SIG customers will be able to respond to consumer demand for packaging made with recycled plastics by choosing SIG cartons made with certified circular polymers. This innovation reinforces SIG’s contribution to the circular economy by making use of low quality, mixed plastic waste that would otherwise be incinerated or sent to landfill. The mixed plastic waste that is collected is treated in a process that enhances the material and transforms it into a high-quality food grade material.
Made primarily from renewable, FSCTM-certified paper board, SIG’s beverage cartons already support the circular economy by promoting the regeneration of vital natural resources in responsibly-managed forests.
Pioneering partnership
SIG is among a select group of companies – and the first in the beverage carton industry – to partner in the foundation stage of development of recycled polymers from post-consumer waste by its supplier, SABIC. This pioneering partnership highlights SIG’s commitment to a more sustainable future through new solutions that support a circular economy.
The recycled polymers offer the same high quality and have the same properties as polymers made entirely from virgin raw materials. Any contaminants are eliminated during processing, making the recycled content completely safe for food packaging.
Certified circular polymers
The recycled polymers offered by SIG will be certified to the ISCC PLUS standard to enable customers to trace recycled content throughout the value chain from post-consumer waste streams to processing and use in the production of new cartons.
SIG’s commitment to sourcing certified sustainable materials is part of its ambition to go Way Beyond Good by putting more into the environment and society than it takes out.
