Sainsbury’s moves cheese SRP from plastic to innovative corrugated design

Submitted by: The Two Sides Team November 23, 2011

To meet Sainsbury's demand for more sustainable packaging, for its own branded sliced cheese ranges, Smurfit Kappa has produced an innovative Shelf Ready Packaging solution. The new SRP replaces a vacuum formed plastic tray with an FSC certified corrugated pack using a novel single faced 'ONDI' Fluting.

The Shelf Ready Pack is designed to ensure the optimum product display on the shelf for the pre-packed cheese slices. Smurfit Kappa ONDI Fluting has exposed fluting, on one side of the board. The new ONDI SRP uses the exposed flutes on the inside of the pack to grip the primary packaging securely, from the sides and the bottom, ensuring the product is always presented with its display face towards the consumer.

The move to an FSC certified, recyclable corrugated SRP from plastic, is an important part of Sainsbury's pledge to cut the quantity of packaging it uses by stepping up its commitment to recycling and reducing the amount of end of life packaging it sends to landfill.

Adam Clark, Smurfit Kappa Retail Project Coordinator at Sainsbury's explains: "Smurfit Kappa's move to 100% FSC and PEFC certification in 2010 allows us to offer Sainsbury's new packaging solutions that are not only sustainable, but innovative as well. Consistency of product presentation on the shelf is critical in today's competitive FMCG market and this new ONDI SRP has been developed to meet a brief to reinvigorate a product range where poor presentation was the result of lacklustre design".

The SRP was developed in close collaboration with Sainsbury's packaging department and its supplier Lancashire based, Singleton's Dairy, which is famous for gaining European Protected Designation Origin, for its Lancashire Cheese and winning "The Farmhouse Cheesemakers Trophy 'Lancashire' at the prestigious International Cheese Awards 2011.

Stuart Lendrum, Head of Packaging and Design at Sainsbury's, comments: "Shelf Ready Packaging is part of the mainstream of food merchandising, ensuring that products are presented on the shelf, making customers lives easier at the shelf. Managing the consistency of presentation whilst ensuring that packaging meets our environmental, print and structural quality requirements and works efficiently for our suppliers' packing processes is a difficult balance to find. Smurfit Kappa is an ideal partner for Sainsbury's, giving us 'in-house' access to their practical knowledge and technical skills. The use of On Display flute is an extremely novel solution, ensuring our brand promise of high quality food products, perfectly presented on the shelf is delivered every time".

Smurfit Kappa was the first UK manufacturer to achieve Chain of Custody (CoC) certification and Carbon Trust Standard across the whole of the packaging cycle, by certifying the carbon footprint of its Paper, Packaging and Recycling divisions The certification encompassed Smurfit Kappa's UK major operations, including 25 Packaging sites, two paper plants and the eight recovered fibre collection locations of Smurfit Kappa Recycling. These range from large integrated factories, to sheet plants and specialist plants for Sheetfeeding and paper printing. Smurfit Kappa has also achieved PEFC and FSC certification. This integrated approach to certification is highly innovative and a first for the UK corrugated sector, enabling Smurfit Kappa to offer its customers fully certified packaging solutions.

For more information, visit www.smurfitkappa.co.uk

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