PulPac and PA win award for sustainable packaging innovation
PulPac and PA Consulting have won the Sustainable Packaging award at the Sustainable Food Awards 2024, for their collaboration on designing and bringing to market a more sustainable approach for product packaging.
The patented Dry Molded Fiber manufacturing technology by PulPac and partner PA Consulting is based on renewable pulp and cellulose resources, creating a fiber-based package that has an 80% to 90% lower CO2 footprint as plastic packaging, at the same or lower cost.
According to the inventors, packaging using Dry Molded Fiber technology can replace most packaging and single-use products presently made of plastics, such as soda and coffee cup lids, bottles, meat trays, retail and bakery deli carry-out containers, and cosmetic packaging.
“The world produces more than 400 million tons of plastic annually. The packaging industry can play a major role in reducing that number. It’s clear that single-use plastics are ripe for reinvention,” said Linus Larsson, Chief Executive Officer of PulPac.
PulPac is a Swedish company that was founded in 2018 by Linus Larsson, and his father, Ove Larsson. “We were fortunate to get a great idea and be able to patent it,” said Ove Larsson, Chief Technical Officer. “However, we had a dilemma. We had the intellectual property and decided to offer PulPac on a license basis, but a lot of resources were needed to industrialize the technology and meet the huge demand of application development.”
That is where PA Consulting came in. “PA Consulting has provided us with an end-to-end manufacturing platform to take our products to market.”
The PA Consulting team also runs PulPac’s Global Application Development Centre in the UK, providing a full suite of services under one roof, including business case development, product design, process and machine engineering, and manufacturing.
“We’re helping build the global market for PulPac and have introduced the company’s to global fast-moving consumer goods brands. That enables PulPac to maximise its investment dollars by moving swiftly to product trials and securing significant new business opportunities,” explained Phil Fawcus, product design and engineering expert at PA Consulting.
Prototype: Diageo’s Irish cream liqueur
The partnership has already resulted in several projects, including with Diageo, which recently unveiled its first commercial Dry Molded Fiber prototype – an Irish cream liqueur in a mini format (80 ml) – at the Time Out Fest 2024 in Barcelona in May.
In the case of Diageo, however, the Dry Molded Fiber bottle is not replacing a plastic bottle, but a glass bottle, which is heavy – and that comes with a heavier carbon footprint. “Plant-based paper alternatives to heavy glass bottles present an exciting opportunity to improve sustainability,” said Fawcus.
In addition, Dry Molded Fiber is superior to other (plant-based) paper alternatives, explained Jamie Stone, a sustainable packaging expert at PA Consulting. “From a sustainability standpoint, Dry Molded Fiber is vastly superior to wet fiber as it eliminates water use and significantly reduces energy consumption. The bottles are fully recyclable and can be disposed of with normal paper recycling and at paper mills, incentivising recycling.”
Gold for Sustainable Packaging
At the Sustainable Food Awards 2024, which took place in Amsterdam this month, the work done by PulPac and PA Consulting won Gold in the Sustainable Packaging category. The jury noted the breakthrough technology, the success of the partnership to date, and the impact of the first commercial application with Diageo.
“We are proud to have won the Gold award together with PulPac,” said Stone. “PulPac’s Dry Molded Fiber technology has enormous potential: it is not only water-saving, energy-efficient and recyclable, but also feasible at commercial production rates and at scale.”
Sanna Fager, Chief Commercial Officer at PulPac, added: “We are proud of this recognition for the Dry Molded Fiber technology we developed in collaboration with PA Consulting. This award confirms that our technology can play a crucial role in reducing the environmental impact of packaging and stimulating a circular economy.”
