On 20 June 2024, ALL4PACK EMBALLAGE PARIS organised a webinar on the trade-offs made by companies in response to the (sometimes contradictory) demands of eco-design. This is a highly topical issue, illustrated by a number of case studies that you can find throughout July on the show’s news pages. This week: Boursin’s cardboard pot, with Alexandre Vernier (Head of Packaging Innovation and CSR at the Bel group)

Reflections on the jar

” We launched this jar for both the Boursin brand and the Kiri brand, to diversify our range and offer our products in a family-size jar to share, as an alternative to the portion or foil format for Boursin. The product was launched with a polypropylene plastic jar, a lid, an aluminium seal and a cardboard rider. Our marketing and sales teams had asked for the cardboard insert to make it easier to place the product on the shelf. (…) The first step was to remove the cardboard insert, which was over-packaging and no longer fitted in with our vision of what optimum packaging should be (…) We then looked at possible alternatives to plastic packaging for this format. So we contacted various suppliers and carried out a number of studies, and in the end we opted for a cardboard pot.

Advantages and limitations

“The cardboard pot has the advantage of reducing the amount of plastic we had with polypropylene, but it’s not optimal from a recyclability point of view because, to manufacture it, we use a plastic film on the inside and outside. For the moment, this is a bit of a barrier to recyclability. In France, it is theoretically accepted for recycling. In practice, we know that in some sorting centres, it is eliminated because this double lamination reduces the quantity of recoverable fibres. (…) But after discussions with the suppliers who produce this type of packaging, we realised that there was an improvement path aimed at removing this outer film and having a clearer visibility in the sorting centres (…)”.

The new pots

“We should pass the 85% fibre mark when this renovation is implemented. The new pots are now arriving on the market and being tested (…)
At the moment, we’re at around 75-80% fibre content on the current packaging, so we’ve more than halved the amount of plastic put on the market”.

Watch the replay of webinar #6 on 20 June 2024 (from 27′ to 39′).

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