Issue 02/2019

Brand owners
In March 2019,
Patrick Zimmermann,
Director Marketing & Sales of
FKuR Kunststoff GmbH, said:
Brand-Owner’s
perspective
on bioplastics and how to
unleash its full potential
“Taking into consideration our customer feedback and our
desire to be great neighbors, we have been taking a careful
look at our packaging and the opportunities that exist to make
improvements, with respect to sustainability.
Since 2009 the
bioplastic world has
changed a lot. New
materials have been
developed and new
market segments
have been explored. At the same time the
portfolio of FKuR has increased during the
last 10 years. With the distribution of Green
PE (Braskem) and Bio-PET (Fenc), as well
as with the development of Terralene ® , a
tailor made Green PE compound and Terraprene
® , a family of partly biobased TPE, we
are now in the situation to serve the special
needs of the cosmetic market.
In 2009 we faced a lack of suitable
materials in terms of barrier properties,
easy processing and recyclability. For the
time being we were able to provide intelligent
Bio-Flex ® and Biograde ® compounds with
advanced features which were a first step
to bridge the gap. However, we still worked
hard on convincing customers to replace
conventional PE for a tube for example
with a Bio-Flex material or on using a
Biograde instead of SAN for a jar. Since
2012 we have been able to supply material
solutions to produce bottles, tubes, caps,
hinges and jars with the same properties
as the petrochemicals. The market is still
challenging and the requirements are
still very high in terms of haptics, designs,
processing and of course shelf life. However,
especially with our todays broad portfolio
and tailor made solutions we are able to
provide the perfect solution for those kind
of requests and offer our customers a
previously unknown design freedom in the
production of his packaging. The shape,
color and feel of the packaging transports
the image of a product and bioplastics ideally
support the sustainable message of a brand.
We created a framework to help us and our vendor
partners, with whom we work closely in this effort, to identify
packaging improvement opportunities. This sustainability
framework is based on the following principles:
1. Reducing and removing packaging
2. Sourcing renewable and recycled packaging materials
3. Choosing packaging that can be realistically recycled
4. Avoiding the use of harmful substances in packaging
5. Providing information to customers that increases
understanding of how best to recycle or dispose of packaging
Here are some of our achievements to date:
• We stopped offering single-use plastic carryout bags in
all stores across the country.
• We replaced plastic produce bags with biodegradable &
compostable produce bags for the convenience of carrying
loose or “by-the-each” fruits and vegetables.
• We eliminated any remaining Styrofoam packages in
our produce section and replaced them with bio-based,
compostable trays.” MT
(Source:www.traderjoes.com/announcement/packaging-improvements)
Trader Joes in Amherst, New York (Photo Sikander Iqbal, CC 4.0)
Trader Joe’s is an American chain of grocery stores headquartered
in Monrovia, California. As of October 2017, Trader Joe’s has 474
stores nationwide in 43 states and in Washington, D.C.. Trader Joe’s is
a subsidiary of German supermarket chain ALDI Nord.
www.traderjoes.com
www.fkur.com
bioplastics MAGAZINE [01/19] Vol. 14 49