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GNT, which supplies plant-based Exberry® colors, has identified “Regeneration Rising” as a key trend in the food and drink sector. The company’s analysis explores the growing global appreciation for the natural world and desire to protect the planet. This mindset is now intensifying the focus on the origins of raw materials and sustainable production. The Regeneration Rising trend is also inspiring new color palettes as brands seek to convey instinctive messages about how their products are created. The use of visually impactful colors that can be found growing on land and in the sea helps manufacturers to showcase products’ eco-credentials and build emotional connections with consumers. GNT has identified three new color directions in line with the trend. “Elevated Earth” involves earthy shades from red-browns and warm oranges to textured purples and inky teals, elevating products with an organic but premium look and feel. “Nature Lab” is about pushing the boundaries of what is considered natural and features a kaleidoscopic spectrum of green, pink, red, yellow, orange, and blue. Finally, “Wholesome Nostalgia” features yellows, greens, blues, peaches, and pinks that range from velvet-like to milky, translucent, muted, and dreamlike. Dieuwertje Raaijmakers, Marketing Communications Specialist at GNT Group, said: “Consumers of all ages are developing a much stronger interest in sustainability and rebuilding their relationships with the natural world. To appeal to these shoppers, food and beverage companies have to showcase their commitment to the planet. Color can play an important role in telling that story, helping brands create appealing products that send out strong visual signals about how they’re produced.” GNT has set out an ambition to lead the food coloring industry on sustainability. The company creates its Exberry® colors from fruits, vegetables, and plants and has set out a series of ambitious targets to optimize its environmental and social impacts at every stage of the value chain. Dieuwertje Raaijmakers said: “Our plant-based Exberry® colors can be used to deliver a full spectrum of shades while supporting products’ sustainability credentials. They allow brands to create products that tap into the new trends for earthy, rich, and dreamlike colors inspired by the planet.”

Throughout 2023, Cabka remained steadfast in its commitment to sustainability, achieving significant milestones, which underscore its leadership in the circularity movement within the Reusable Transport Packaging industry. Cabka's dedication to sustainability is exemplified by its remarkable achievement of 89% of raw material originating in plastic material recovery. This means that the company was able to increase the already high proportion of recycled materials intake by a further 3% compared to the previous year. This accomplishment significantly surpasses the European average of 14% recycled plastics and the target to get to 33% by 2030.¹, highlighting Cabka's pioneering role in reshaping industry standards. Notably, all products are 100% reusable, with clauses for take-back and recycling, further supporting the circularity ethos.

In recognition of its commitment to sustainability, Cabka attained "gold" status in the prestigious EcoVadis assessment for the first time in 2023. This underlines Cabka's exceptional performance across various sustainability metrics, elevating the company to be within the top 6% of rated organizations, a leap from the top 25% in just one year.

Moreover, Cabka's engagement with the Carbon Disclosure Program (CDP) underscores its dedication to addressing climate impacts. With a commendable B score, Cabka aligns itself with the overall performance of European companies, demonstrating its proactive stance in combating climate change. Cabka's performance surpasses the sector's average, being an average grade C across the plastic products manufacturing industry.

New training machine moves into the Gerhard Schubert Training Centre Schubert is continuously developing its state-of-the-art top-loading packaging machines. To ensure that customers and employees are always up to date with the latest technology, the company offers regular training courses at its Training Centre. The demand for these courses is high and Schubert has now invested in a new training machine so that it can continue to meet this demand. Schubert opened the new Training Centre at its main site in Crailsheim at the end of 2022. And a great deal has been achieved since then. The existing training portfolio was scrutinised and revised in view of responding even better to the specific requirements of customers and employees. In doing so, Schubert developed new formats and content and designed a series of online training courses in addition to the face-to-face courses. Schubert is currently supplementing its offering with a recently developed digital learning platform. Personnel capacities have also been increased. What was lacking, however, was a new training machine. Sarah Busch, Head of Customer Training at Gerhard Schubert, explains: “Our training concept is based on a well-balanced mix of traditional and digital learning content. Interactive courses and explanatory videos are a great way of understanding and familiarising yourself with certain topics, but some subjects are easier to learn when you are standing right at the machine with a trainer and a small team, and you have the opportunity to get hands-on and try things out. As our previous training machines were always fully booked, we decided to invest in a further model.” Typical exercises that are carried out on the new and previous packaging machines include standard activities such as referencing the robots, selecting new programs on the control panel, as well as relevant checks, maintenance, recognising and rectifying error messages and troubleshooting. The training also covers the various system components of the training machine, which is at the cutting edge of technology. From the Transmodul to the F2 and T5 robots to the 3D scanner, the aim is to build up important knowledge. Sarah Busch adds: “The training courses are very popular with both our employees and customers. With our new training machine, we can expand our capacities and offer significantly more training courses. Our customers and employees benefit from a practical training experience, which ultimately benefits everyone in their day-to-day work.”

The companies from Verden/Aller and Stuttgart have founded a sales and service company in the Netherlands. The newly established Vemag-Seydelmann NL B.V. is taking over the joint sales of the mechanical engineering companies as of March 1, 2024. Vemag CEO Andreas Bruns explains the customer benefits of the cooperation: "Thanks to the new partnership, we can offer our customers in the Netherlands an even broader machine portfolio and optimise planning, expert advice and service. This will enable us to support our customers even better, faster and more efficiently. The establishment of the new company brings together two strong partners who offer customers individual process solutions. With around 400 employees, Maschinenfabrik Seydelmann KG manufactures high-quality, high-performance machines for food processing such as cutters, pulverizers and mixers. Vemag Maschinenbau GmbH has around 900 employees and offers a comprehensive and innovative range of services for a constantly growing customer base. The Vemag concept consists of a standard filling machine and customized attachments. This modular system is flexible to meet the specific needs of the user and offers efficient solutions that cover production capacities from small to large and all applications from filling and portioning, forming and grinding, dough and batter dividing to innovative portion-to-pack solutions.

Herbstreith & Fox presents customised solutions for the development of recipes with reduced sugar for use in products such as confectionery and jam. Sugar holds an irresistible attraction for our palate and is a versatile foodstuff with many different uses. In food production it substantially influences the mouthfeel, consistency, viscosity, color and aroma of a product. Its conserving properties are a further plus point for the development of food products. In order to balance out all these functions in a reduced sugar product recipe, it is necessary to carefully balance the combination of ingredients. The popularity of reduced sugar versions is primarily influenced by the sensory qualities of the product. The more similar the mouthfeel and the taste experience is to the classic version, the more popular the product is with consumers. This means that focussing on a balanced combination of ingredients is not only of decisive importance for the sensory aspects but also for the market success of newly developed products with less sugar. Herbstreith & Fox presents customised solutions for the development of recipes with reduced sugar for use in products such as confectionery and jam. Our experienced specialists work closely with you on new developments or reformulation of existing recipes. The aim is a perfect solution for
• jams and fruit spreads with less sugar that satisfy the sensory requirements of consumers.
• fruit gum and jelly products with sugar substitutes that set reliably in the same way as customary sugar products.

15 April 2024 marks the start of the submission phase for the German Packaging Award 2024. Companies, organisations and individuals from home and abroad have until 31 May to submit their innovations and best solutions to Europe’s largest independent showcase for packaging. The award, organised by the German Packaging Institute (dvi), is decided by an independent jury of experts in 10 categories across all materials and sectors. And this year the application process is being made even easier with a new portal. “Innovations play a crucial role in shaping the future. They create new opportunities and overcome challenges. This is particularly the case with packaging, where innovations are the basis for growth, success and competitive advantage, for health, diversity, zest for and quality of life, for environmental and climate protection. The German Packaging Award puts this achievement centre stage – from the seemingly small detail to the all-encompassing new design. It celebrates the best solutions and pays tribute to the people behind them,” says Oliver Berndt, Head of Events & Marketing at the dvi.

Marking a significant food packaging industry milestone, Klöckner Pentaplast (kp) has launched the first food packaging trays comprising 100% recycled PET (rPET) deriving exclusively from trays. Until now, food packaging trays have been manufactured using ever increasing proportions of recovered PET material; however, the newly launched kp tray is the first to be composed entirely of recycled tray material. This milestone is the direct result of the kp’s Tray2Tray® initiative, which aims to rewrite the PET recycling rules. "As a bold innovator, we are thrilled to introduce the first-ever 100% rPET tray to the market." said Thomas Kure Jakobsen, President, Food Packaging at kp. "This achievement is a major breakthrough in the packaging industry, and perfectly demonstrates what is possible with the right combination of expertise and technology. Most rPET in the material loop comes from plastic bottles, of which just 30% goes into food packaging trays, and most of this does not end up being recovered. As a result, countless tonnes of rPET tray material are wasted each year. “kp Tray2Tray® challenges this by creating a robust closed loop system of PET flake from trays. We work with suppliers to create a separate supply stream of recycled PET from trays, which can be used to create more of the same, rather than being downcycled.” Thanks to this breakthrough, kp customers can access a fully circular tray solution for food packaging. The kp supply chain is RecyClass certified, ensuring the safety, quality and traceability of its PCR packaging solutions. The new 100% kp Tray2Tray® packaging is ideal for businesses looking to control costs pertaining to eco taxes and plastic tax legislation, as well as those looking to advance their ESG strategies. Thomas Kure Jakobsen added: “We’re not just looking to move the needle on plastic tray sustainability; we’re aiming to begin the next era. One of the biggest advantages of partnering with kp and using kp Tray2Tray® content is that it’s a perfect ‘drop in’ solution, so switching over is easy, and packaging performance isn’t compromised. Our 100% kp Tray2Tray® packaging is a real, workable tray that offers a glimpse into the future of tray packaging circularity.”

State-of-the-art technology will recover energy from waste water towards more sustainable production Beneo, a manufacturer of functional ingredients for food, feed and pharma, is continuing its commitment towards more sustainable production processes by installing new equipment at its rice ingredients plant in Wijgmaal, Belgium. Thanks to a large-scale industrial heat pump supplied by Heaten, a specialist in industrial heat pump solutions, the company will be able to recover energy from waste water to reduce its CO2 emissions. The rice ingredients produced at BENEO’s Wijgmaal site are used by food manufacturers worldwide to make pudding creamier, improve the dough consistency of a pizza crust or refine the viscosity of soups in a more convenient way. Manufacturing specialty rice ingredients involves both a wet extraction operation and a drying process, which requires very high temperatures. Currently, the energy for the drying process is derived from natural gas. By investing into an industrial heat pump that recovers energy from waste water that would have been usually lost, Beneo continues to improve its sustainable energy management. Thanks to state-of-the-art technology used by the heat pump, the energy from the waste water is increased to a level that is high enough to contribute to the drying process of rice starch or rice protein. In this way, the new installation will help to significantly reduce the company’s natural gas consumption, and therefore CO2 emissions. Beneo has been collaborating with the company Heaten as an experienced partner in industrial heat pumps to improve the sustainability of its overall production process. “Installing the heat pump represents an important sustainability milestone for us at Beneo as it will help us to reduce CO2 emissions which is key to mitigating our overall impact on the planet. We’ve spent several months installing heat exchangers and additional piping at our Wijgmaal factory, with the heat pump expected to be operational in June 2024,” explained Roland Vanhoegaerden, Operations Managing Director, Specialty Rice Ingredients at Beneo. The heat pump is the latest in a series of ambitious examples of more sustainable energy management at Beneo. Energy consumption inside the plant has already been made as efficient as possible through the installation of frequency converters and Beneo buys 100% green electricity from its supplier. The company has also significantly reduced carbon emissions generated from transport, after halving its inland European freight movement from road to river.