Having indulged in plenty of chocolate treats over the holiday, confectioners too will be universally upbeat about Easter 2015, and with good reason. Chocolate egg sales enjoyed an 11.7 per cent increase in sales in Easter 2014, and as a result, many confectioners are hopeful they will maintain this growth.1 Also, Easter chocolate certainly hasn’t been shying away from the headlines either. The recent social media storm over the reformulation of Cadbury’s Creme Eggs caused an uproar among customers.2
At fc cartons, we too are seeing the year-on-year increase in demand for Easter confectionery. Furthermore, we have also seen that leading manufacturers of food products are taking the initiative to create sustainable packaging, and reduce waste where possible. According to WRAP, the government’s waste advisory body, Easter egg packaging generates around 3,000 tonnes of waste each year.3 As such, demand for eco-friendly packaging material is increasing, and many manufacturers are seeing the appeal of biodegradable paper and board packaging. This means that many food manufacturers are opting to remove plastic materials where possible, in order to generate more biodegradable waste.
Leading manufacturers are reacting to the pressures from the retailers, consumers and government and are making an effort to come up with new innovations in design and materials to meet the demands of the supply chain. At fc cartons, we recognise these demands being made on our customers and have worked closely with them through our Technical Development Facility. We have further supported this effort with investment in machinery and people in order to provide a flexible, seamless and reliable service minimising the trouble and delay that our customers can encounter when running trials and figuring out ways to glue complicated and problematic cartons. This in turn, frees up their time enabling them to run their machines at full capacity. In essence, our efforts bolster our customers’ confidence in their own development within the supply chain.
In addition to innovating new designs and honing our production methods, we constantly strive to uphold our responsibilities as a green business. To this end, we use Smurfit Kappa’s recycling services, we offset all our waste through our tree planting initiatives and we pride ourselves on being a carbon neutral business. We also have an effective Environmental Management System in place under our ISO 14001 accreditation, which ensures we set annual objectives to reduce our environmental impact.
1 The Grocer, 10th January 2015 edition, p. 48.
2 The Grocer, 21st February 2015 edition, p. 30
3 http://recycle-technology.co.uk/sainsburys-introduce-recycling-easter-egg-packaging-initiative/
