Meeting the growing demands of food packaging: Where performance meets responsibility

In our latest Spotlight, Arnaud Brunet, Senior Director Portfolio and Sustainability at CRYOVAC®, looks at why food packaging has to work harder, and how CRYOVAC® is helping businesses across the value chain to deliver on the promise of ‘Where Performance Meets Responsibility’.

Arnaud Brunet, Senior Director Portfolio and Sustainability at CRYOVAC®

More is being asked of packaging than ever before. The transition towards a circular economy is gathering pace, creating an almost impossible challenge for food companies to improve food protection, reduce waste, enhance operational efficiencies and keep up with regulations.

From regulation to implementation

The PPWR now applies across the EU, marking a shift from preparing for the regulation to putting its requirements into practice. As implementation is phased over the coming years, important technical criteria, methodologies and guidance are still developing.

Packaging is increasingly expected to do far more than protecting food. It has to support sustainability targets, comply with new regulations and contribute to operational efficiency. With little room for compromise, CRYOVAC® innovation focuses on helping companies improve productivity, extend shelf life and reduce waste, and support recyclability, without sacrificing performance.

Designing for recyclability

A key part of our approach is the development of a recycle-ready portfolio in line with Design for Recycling guidelines, with selected solutions certified as recyclable by the Cyclos-HTP Institute. Certified recyclable solutions have been developed for a range of applications, including fresh meats, fish, smoked and processed meats, cheese, ready meals and liquid foods.

As with all recyclability claims, the actual recycling outcome depends on the final pack configuration and the availability of local recycling infrastructure. This is why it’s important for packaging design to consider how the material will perform within recycling streams. CRYOVAC® solutions such as Horizontal Form Fill Seal (HFFS) Films, Shrink Bags and Lidding Films are developed with this real-world view in mind, helping food companies adopt packaging formats that are compatible with established recycling streams wherever possible. This can help support material recovery and broader circular economy objectives.

We are also incorporating recycled content into selected products where technically viable, including Darfresh® bottom webs. The important point here is that the recycled material is being utilised, while retaining the packaging’s high-performance properties so that the bottom webs still deliver high abuse, tight vacuum and safe-seal properties.

Maintaining performance

In addition to our work on recyclability and recycled content, our packaging solutions use advanced, lighter materials. High-performance films such as CRYOVAC® BDF have demonstrated up to 60% reduction in plastic weight, compared to selected thick laminates or thermoforming materials (based on internal comparative pack-weight analyses), with greater reductions in weight possible in certain trayless applications. These ultra-thin films can significantly reduce material consumption and still deliver high levels of barrier protection, as well as crystal-clear, anti-fog optics.

Barrier performance can already support sustainability goals by extending shelf life and protecting food quality and safety. By reducing the risk of product spoilage and damage, these performance properties may help to minimise food waste. At the same time, packaging that enhances product presentation and shelf appeal can support sales, possibly reducing the likelihood of disposing of unsold food. It’s crucial that such performance can be maintained as materials become thinner and lighter.

Achieving technical excellence

Material innovation alone will not deliver a circular packaging system. To truly improve packaging sustainability and circularity, we believe there must be technical and operational excellence throughout the entire packaging process. We work closely with customers and industry partners to achieve this, developing a powerful combination of packaging systems and materials that can help boost efficiencies and productivity.

When CRYOVAC® Shrinkable Rollstock PrimeVac is used as part of an integrated automated packaging system combining film, Flow-Vac® loading technology, and vacuum chamber machines, processors can improve operational efficiency by increasing output by 11%, reducing labour needs by 12%, and lowering material loss by 30–50%, based on internal testing. The solution uses 25% thinner film and up to 60% less material than thermoforming, helping to reduce plastic use, waste, and regulatory costs, while maintaining packaging performance.

Our commitment to technical and operational excellence is key to designing high-performance packaging that helps food companies meet evolving packaging requirements at scale. Innovation like the CRYOVAC® AutoWrap Lite for cheese demonstrates this by reducing plastic use by 63.5% by weight, compared with conventional vacuum thermoforming packs, while operating at industrial speeds of up to 90 packs per minute and maintaining shelf life of 45-120 days under validated conditions. These performance properties saw CRYOVAC® AutoWrap Lite win prestigious World Dairy Innovation and Gold Pack awards this year, which celebrates excellence throughout the global dairy industry.

For 85 years, technical expertise has been at the heart of CRYOVAC®. It continues to guide the development of partnerships and solutions that enable us to meet evolving compliance requirements and support food businesses in a value chain where performance must meet responsibility.