EUROPE – European bottler of carbonated soft drinks Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP) and Dutch multinational dairy cooperative FrieslandCampina have introduced new solutions aimed at cutting down their respective packaging carbon footprints.  

CCEP is trialing a new drink dispensing technology in Spain that allows consumers in out-of-home venues such as restaurants, cafes, offices, and stadiums that offer Coca-Cola brands to serve themselves and refill drinks directly from the tap. 

“The self-pour, self-pay technology offers consumers a convenient packaging-free delivery method for their drinks, while also cutting down queues, reducing the need for unnecessary contact, and freeing up serving staff – features that are beneficial as COVID-19 restrictions lift,” says CCEP.  

The company champions the tech as a ‘packaging-free’ alternative (in that dispensing tech plus glass or cup can replace the use of plastic bottles or cans that would otherwise be used if single-serve packaged beverages were sold at the venue).  

Cutting the amount of plastic for out-of-home beverage drinks would be timely as it would help the CSD bottler reduce the number of plastics it produces and thus making it easier for Coca-Cola to achieve its goal of collecting and recycling the equivalent of a bottle or can for every one that the company sells globally by 2030.

FrieslandCampina introduces sustainable labels for dairy products

Meanwhile in the Netherlands, FrieslandCampina has introduced sustainable labels for yogurt and soft curd cups which according to the company will make more than 400,000 kilograms of cups becoming recyclable. 

Previously, the cups could not be recycled as a whole, because during the waste sorting process the machines did not recognize the label around the cups as recyclable. 

“Now we have found a solution for this. With the new labels around our yogurt and soft curd cups we make sure that these packages are correctly recognized and sorted for recycling in the existing recycling processes and do not end up in the residual waste flow for energy recovery,” said Patrick van Baal, global director packaging development at FrieslandCampina 

Currently, the products adopting the new innovation are yogurt and soft curd cups from the brands Campina, Optimel, and Mona (450g and 500g).  

According to the company, the introduction of the new sustainable labels is another step in  FrieslandCampina’s Nourishing a better planet sustainability program whose aim is to make better packaging that is 100% circular. 

The new packaging also helps the company in its broader goal of achieving net-zero emissions across its supply chain by 2050.  

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