The sustainability issues food and beverage brands and manufacturers face are multifaceted and interconnected and span the entirety of global food supply chains, from the sourcing and origination of raw materials and packaging choices to downstream logistics and disposal.
Tackling these problems alone is unlikely to lead to significant headway. Rather, food and beverage brands should seek inspiration and innovation beyond their organisation. By collaborating with equipment suppliers, supply chain partners, retailers, and even competitor brands, companies can set common sustainability goals, pool resources, and make a far more significant impact than they could individually.
As Rachael Satchwell, Global Food Sector Manager, Domino Printing Sciences, highlights, a collaborative approach amplifies potential progress and inspires and motivates everyone involved to innovate for a better future.
Sustainable design
Working towards a circular economy is critical to global sustainability. This means embracing a food and beverage production and consumption model that aims to reduce waste while keeping resources in use. It entails ensuring that raw materials are sourced responsibly and choosing and designing product packaging that provides protection to prevent food waste while supporting brands, retailers and consumers in end-of-life recyclability.
As part of their efforts, manufacturers may consider incorporating environmentally-friendly, ethical, and alternative (e.g., plant-based) raw materials in product design and production. They may also look at improving a product’s energy efficiency to reduce cost and waste during production – and designing product packaging for reuse and recycling.
Deciding on a packaging material will involve a number of criteria, including ease of recyclability, reuse, or compostability; overall packaging weight; and energy and water use. For example, while a glass bottle may seem like the more ‘sustainable’ solution for beverages owing to the ease of recyclability, the overall increase in product weight compared to PET can easily lead to a spike in carbon emissions from transport downstream if logistics still rely on carbon-based energy.
It is for precisely this complexity and interdependency that any changes to products need to be considered alongside the potential secondary effects they might have – to ensure that products can still be effectively managed on production lines, including product handling, packaging, or coding and marking, and that changes don’t have a negative impact on sustainability further downstream.
While speaking to other businesses, and even competitor brands, about potential design and development opportunities might seem counterintuitive from a business perspective, by working together, brands can pool resources, apply influence up and down the supply chain, and ensure any new projects are complementary rather than detrimental in the wider marketplace.
Collaborating with production suppliers and other businesses from the wider supply chain is also essential. The challenge is far greater than one organisation alone can assume responsibility for. As such, it’s easy for individual companies to propose changes, for example, to product packaging design, that may have unforeseen negative impacts if materials recycling facilities cannot adequately handle them. Collaborating with other trusted partners from within the broader supply chain can help to develop solutions that are truly sustainable while avoiding potential pitfalls.
Mitigating production waste
The UK's Waste and Resource Action Programme estimates that 16% of all food waste occurs during the manufacturing process – with human error and production line inefficiencies, including manual product changeovers, emerging as some of the major drivers behind these losses.
When human error causes issues during the production process, the best-case scenario is that products must be repackaged; the worst case is that highly perishable items, such as dairy products, will be written off as food waste.
Food and beverage manufacturers should collaborate closely with their machinery suppliers to identify areas where waste could be mitigated and implement solutions to ensure that energy, time, and funds are spent creating the maximum possible number of high-quality, sellable products. After all, improved efficiency equals greater sustainability.
Automation, machine integration, and vision-based quality control are key strategies for identifying and resolving issues linked to human error and manual processing and, by extension, reducing waste.
Finally, manufacturers can mitigate production waste by implementing real-time machine performance monitoring solutions. Sensors and cloud-based solutions can be customised to detect drops in performance, sending alerts that facilitate swift intervention before a line stops or packaging degradation leads to products being unfit for distribution, sale, or consumer consumption.
Sustainability in supply chain chains
Environmentally responsible manufacturing doesn’t end with production. Supply chain optimisation is fundamental to sustainability in manufacturing. To promote this, brands should seek to collaborate with upstream and downstream supply chain partners and set up systems to increase transparency and share more data.
During periods of high demand or when faced with stock shortages and delays, increased visibility can help manufacturers accurately forecast lead times, control stock requirements, and manage customer expectations.
Including variable product data, such as batch and product information, embedded within scannable 2D codes facilitates greater visibility within supply chains. Greater visibility allows for more accurate stock control. It makes sources of errors or leakage easier to trace so brands can optimise their operations, improve resilience, and reduce the risk of food waste.
Data sharing will be critical for compliance with regulations like the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), requiring manufacturers to track and report their full carbon footprint, including Scope 3 carbon emissions, further highlighting the important role of collaboration in meeting industry standards and developing environmentally sustainable solutions.
Conclusion
The pathway to a more sustainable, environmentally responsible future for food and beverage production will require global commitment and cooperation.
For manufacturers, the ideal approach will involve collaboration with like-minded organisations and building partnerships with suppliers who can help implement sustainable practices at every stage of the production and supply chain process.
This holistic approach will not only benefit the environment but will also help brands to reduce costs, improve customer satisfaction, and enhance brand reputation.
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