It got expensive in 2022. Really expensive. A confectionery manufacturer in France and the Benelux countries had to recall around 550 tonnes of its products. A defective filter had allowed salmon residue to enter a butter container during the production process. And with it the salmonella.
The bacteria cause salmonellosis, the second most frequently reported gastrointestinal infection in the EU. And an important cause of foodborne outbreaks. In 2022 alone, 65,967 laboratory-confirmed cases of salmonellosis were reported in the EU, 81 of which were fatal - a rate of 15.5 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
The outbreak resulted in more than two million US dollars in compensation payments for the company affected. The financial losses due to unsold goods and damage to the company's image could not be measured. The company itself estimates that around 60 per cent of its customers have lost confidence in its products, while the ENFIT organisation for supply chain safety calculated the average damage caused by such recalls due to quality defects at around 550 million euros.
Many regulations, little commitment
The fact that similar incidents are no coincidence became very clear a few days ago at an ENFIT conference in Brussels, where Vladimir Surčinski, CEO of the organisation for supply chain safety, painted a pretty bleak picture of everyday life in transport and cleaning processes. Although those supply chains that deal with food in particular are subject to a large number of regulations and standards, these often do not set very high quality requirements and in many cases are simply not observed.
"On the one hand, I was shocked at the conditions that are accepted as standard out there without any obvious interest in them. As a rule, the companies don't even know about it because they think "this has been dealt with as standard, so it fits". However, there are two problems with this: the standards suggest a quality requirement that does not exist and compliance with these pro forma standards is simply bypassed. Control: no sign of it. On the other hand, I can see how ENFIT identifies these problems and remedies them with its own high standards and certifications," says Pacoon Managing Director Peter Désilets.
Packaging and transport of food: Often a hygiene disaster
Vladimir Surčinski did not spare the conference visitors with a wealth of photos showing the most serious hygiene deficiencies in food transport. These included unsealed or leaking pipes, missing filters, containers with open weld seams, rust in food tanks and completely dirty transport units. Unsustainable packaging or transport packaging already has a very negative impact on the environment in itself - under these conditions, it becomes an acute health hazard.
In order to substantiate the situation with figures, ENFIT subjected more than 50 companies to the THR analysis (Transport Hygiene Risk Analysis), which measures the extent to which an organisation can only react to transport hygiene risks or actively and efficiently prepare for them. The result is as expected: none of the companies analysed reached the minimum level 3 out of 5, with all of them averaging a "high risk".
Hans-Dieter Philipowski, President of ENFIT, comments: "The ENFIT THR analysis shows that this problem extends far beyond the food sector. Animal feed and chemical transports are also affected. The illegal use of transport containers in so-called "swap bodies" is particularly critical: We have documented numerous cases in which transport containers that are reserved exclusively for the transport of foodstuffs and should be labelled accordingly as "FOR FOOD ONLY" have also been used for hazardous goods or other chemicals - and vice versa."
Focus on recycling and reusable packaging
In other words, conditions that ultimately endanger human lives. And which can also have extremely unpleasant consequences for companies. However, many industries have another reason to take a very close look at transport hygiene: the PPWR.
The EU PPWR (Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation) is set to replace the previous Packaging Directive from 2026 at the latest and is regarded as a Europe-wide minimum requirement - individual national packaging laws go even further. Its fundamental aim is to reduce the environmental impact of the use of and waste from packaging. On the one hand, the focus is on the general reduction of single-use transport packaging, as single-use packaging is to be reduced in favour of reusable packaging in accordance with the PPWR. R&D is also to be promoted when it comes to the development and production of new packaging. However, the main focus is on increasing the recycling rate and the use of recyclates and, in many cases, more reuse.
Reusable packaging requires cleaning
A focus that brings with it a whole range of implications. This includes a significantly increased need for cleaning reusable packaging and corresponding reusable transport. For manufacturers and retailers, negligence in this area can therefore soon become expensive. The PPWR is quite clear in this respect: it requires EU member states to "lay down in their national legislation effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties for infringements of this Regulation".
"The use of reusable containers is one thing. But cleaning requires new systems that only partially exist so far. There are various options for cleaning and recycling. The most expensive for a company is certainly its own closed loop," says Peter Désilets. But trust in other systems also has its price, warns Désilets: "However, if I want to use an existing infrastructure, I want to be able to rely on compliance with hygiene standards so as not to jeopardise my brand. However, today's standards are completely inadequate, but the transport companies are being forced to pay and only have to deliver the minimum standard. This leads to many errors and risks in the supply chain, as the THR analysis clearly shows."
Plastics, recycling rates and more: keeping track with Pacoon
The PPWR is currently the most discussed set of regulations in connection with packaging and will bring about the biggest upheaval in the history of packaging. But it is by no means the only one. In addition to the PPWR, the packaging sector is constantly subject to national regulatory changes. In 2022 alone, the European Union implemented almost 1,500 decisions, regulations and directives that directly or indirectly affect packaging, the disposal of packaging materials and sustainability.
With its Regulation Monitoring Service , Pacoon Sustainabililty Concepts (PSC) offers a special service that keeps companies informed at all times about which legal changes are currently taking place at European and national level - and what this means for them in concrete terms. The screening is tailored to the specific effects of the respective product portfolio - PSC not only informs you about upcoming and expected legislative changes and identifies the need for action, but also provides customised recommendations for your packaging strategy.
In addition, PSC now also offers the PPWR Guidelines, which allow every packaging developer to identify the requirements for their packaging for the individual marketing scenario within two minutes.
First come, first served
For PSC, however, the PPWR Guidelines are only the first step: understanding the law in order to identify the necessary challenges. The real task then follows as regulation monitoring for the entire packaging portfolio and the derivation of the necessary recommendations for action in comparison with the relevant laws. Knowing that well over a million companies inside and outside the EU will have to take action and that professionally trained experts are already in short supply, the pressure on companies to get started on time is growing all the more. This is because packaging manufacturers are also required to present new solutions that first need to be developed.
The requirements will often not be met by simply upgrading current solutions. Furthermore, the higher disposal fees will probably make these solutions significantly more expensive - with a plastic tax, a single-use plastic fund together with the current disposal fees of the dual system, there is talk of a tripling of the fees. It is therefore all the more important that the frontrunners will occupy the best places in the race and the stragglers will have to make do with the remaining places.
