Scandale de la viande de Cheval : la traçabilité en question!

Je vous invite à lire mon article publié dans le dernier numéro de la revue l’Actualité Alimentaire: Scandale de la viande de Cheval : la traçabilité en question!

Le scandale de la viande de cheval,  en mettant en lumière une filière d’approvisionnement aux multiples intermédiaires, soulève de nouveau le problème de la traçabilité dans l’industrie agroalimentaire. Dans cette quête vers plus de transparence, l’industrie agro-alimentaire pourrait s’appuyer sur l’emballage comme support privilégié de la traçabilité.

Depuis le début de l’année, la découverte de viande de cheval dans de nombreux plats cuisinés estampillées "viande de bœuf" crée l’émoi dans la filière bovine et chez les consommateurs européens. S’il n’y a certes pas de danger sanitaire, le "Horsegate" est néanmoins le révélateur de l’opacité qui entoure la production des plats cuisinés. Dans la filière viande, comme dans beaucoup d’autres filières alimentaires, l’approvisionnement s'est articulé autour d’une chaîne très complexe, alliant marchés internationaux de matière première alimentaire et une cascade d’intermédiaires. À chaque étape, il peut y avoir des défaillances. L’enquête doit encore déterminer à quel niveau il y a eu tromperie sur la marchandise.

Le scandale de la viande de cheval dans les produits cuisinés révèle les failles d'un système agroalimentaire mondialisé devenu complexe et dominé par des logiques financières. Mais en entraînant des risques de rappels massifs ou de réputation et  de mauvaise image de marque, ce genre de  dérapages  pourrait coûter bien cher aux industries agroalimentaires. Dans ce contexte, l’emballage, à l’instar des étiquettes intelligentes, peut offrir des pistes de solutions qui méritent d’être explorées. 

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Nb: N'hésitez pas à me contacter (pak-bec@hotmail.com) si vous voulez consulter l'intégrale de cet article.

A Global Flexible Packaging Market SWOT statement to 2016

Another remarkable article from the Converting Curmudgeon. Mark Spaulding is sharing with us UK-based PCI Films Consulting president Simon King SWOT statement from his keynote presentation on the“Global Flexible Packaging Market”.

Strengths

• The global flexible packaging market (at $71 billion in 2011) will grow by around 5.0% a year, reaching $90 billion in 2016. North America and Central/East Asia will be the top two regional markets with 25% and 24% shares, respectively.
• Flexible packaging is an industry relatively immune from global economic downturns.
• In 2016, 42% of the industry will be in Asian markets, which are growing at about 7% a year — the fastest growing region is Southeast Asia and Oceania, driven by high demand in India with 15-20% annual increases.
• The global arena remains “local” with regional converters supplying the vast proportion of local packaged-goods customers’ needs. Only 4% of flex-pack production is traded outside the region in which it is manufactured.
• Amcor, Bemis and Sealed Air are the top three product converters with 9%, 8% and 4% global market share, respectively.
• Flex packs’ inherent source-reduction characteristics (thin materials, lighter weight) allow packaging-waste reduction over rigid formats.

Weaknesses

• Flexs packs have a reputation for being hard to recycle — especially multilayer laminated structures that are often not accepted in curbside recycling programs.
• Higher raw-material costs and lack of suitable barrier properties of biodegradables and compostables mean that so far these materials have had little impact.
• Economic uncertainty has encouraged only short-term buying, just-in-time delivery by customers in some regional markets.
• Western Europe (and to a lesser extent, North America) is suffering from low value growth (1-2% a year) compared to other regions. Volumes are being sustained primarily by serving only defensive end-use markets.
• Mature flex-pack markets in Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, Singapore) are growing only 1-2% a year.

Opportunities

• Global personal disposable incomes are rising, encouraging consumers to buy more packaged goods of all types.
• Standup pouches, the dominant format in Western Europe, are a vanguard of positive environmental and consumer-convenience trends for flex packs.
• High oxygen- and moisture-barrier, metallized laminates  and coextrusions are likely to extend the value-added sector.
• Multinational brand owners are sourcing globally, driving inter-regional M&As among converters, or converters adopting strategies for a global presence.
• Investment in new plants, equipment in places such as Russia, India, Indonesia is boosting lower-cost, more-efficient production.
• Converters need to establish lower-cost production in countries where access to cost-conscious markets is free (Mexico, Poland).
• Promotion and possible investment in breakthrough pyrolysis systems are needed to boost this important new flexible-packaging recycling process for laminates and aluminum-foil structures.

Threats

• Flex-pack converters must address environmental issues to cut packaging waste, promote growth in lighter weight products as cost-effective alternatives to rigid packaging.
• Sustainability has now become just as important as the above traits.
• Legislative pressures may force adoption of non-oil-based materials.
• For North America, low-cost imports from Asia are increasing, especially onto the US West Coast. Converters with Mexican plants are exploiting the low-cost base to competitively supply into the US. And growth in imports of pre-packaged products into the US from Mexico translates into reduced demand for US-made flexible packaging.

Bioplastics pose no threat to food supply

The surface required to grow sufficient feedstock for today’s bioplastic production is less than 0.006 percent of the global agricultural area of 5 billion hectares. This is the key finding published today by European Bioplastics, based on figures from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and calculations of the Institute for Bioplastics and Biocomposites (IfBB, University Hannover, Germany).

Minimal fraction of land used for bioplastics

European Bioplastics market data depicts production capacities of around 1.2 million tonnes in 2011. This translates to approximately 300,000 hectares of land-use to grow feedstock for bioplastics. In relation to the global agricultural area of 5 billion hectares, bioplastics make use of only 0.006 percent. Metaphorically speaking, this ratio correlates to the size of an average cherry tomato placed next to the Eiffel Tower.

No competition to food and feed

A glance at the global agricultural area and the way it is used makes it abundantly clear: 0.006 percent used to grow feedstock for bioplastics are nowhere near being in competition with the 98 percent used for pastures and to grow food and feed.

According to European Bioplastics, increasing the efficiency of feedstock and agricultural technology will be key to assuring the balance between land-use for innovative bioplastics and land for food and feed. The emergence of reliable and independent sustainability assessment schemes will also contribute to this goal.

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Bisphénol A (BPA) et cancer : les preuves s'accumulent

Rarement – jamais peut-être – une agence de sécurité sanitaire aura rendu des conclusions aussi alarmantes sur un polluant à ce point omniprésent dans notre environnement quotidien. Au terme d'un travail de longue haleine ayant rassemblé les contributions d'une centaine de scientifiques, l'Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire de l'alimentation, de l'environnement et du travail (Anses) a rendu public, mardi 9 avril, un avis sur le bisphénol A (BPA) singulièrement inquiétant pour les générations à venir.

De toutes les substances chimiques de synthèse capables d'interférer avec le système hormonal ("perturbateurs endocriniens"), le BPA est celle qui entre dans la composition du plus grand nombre d'objets (plastiques, conserves, canettes, amalgames dentaires, etc.) ; il imprègne l'ensemble de la population occidentale.

Selon l'agence française, "certaines situations d'exposition de la femme enceinte au BPA présentent un risque pour la glande mammaire de l'enfant à naître". En d'autres termes, les enfants exposées in utero à des taux de BPA rencontrés dans la population générale pourront avoir un risque accru de contracter un cancer du sein plus tard dans leur vie.

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Recyclable Coated Paper for Food Service Packaging

You find enclosed my talk entitled: "Recyclable coated paper for Food service Packaging" given at the Food Packaging CoRR Conference, April 4, 2013, Washington, DC, USA.

 

Recyclable Coated Paper for Food Service Packaging from Islem Yezza

Recyclable coated paper for Food service Packaging

I will be presenting at the upcoming FoodPackaging CoRR Conference, scheduled for April 4, 2013 in Washington, DC.

My talk entitled: "Recyclable coated paper for Food service Packaging" will be focused on the application of recyclable barriers on paper for Food service Packaging Applications.

Agenda

1.     Paper-based Packaging : Trends and Market

2.     Enhancing barrier properties: Why Wax is on the Wane?

3.     Extrusion coating/lamination:

1.     Conventional resin

2.     Compostable resin (PLA)

3.     Film lamination

4.     Water-based coating: A bright future

5.     Eco-friendly and Innovative Paper-based Packaging

6.     Take home…

Why Some Companies Successfully Innovate and Others Don't

The recession is over. But its end did not herald a return to business as usual. High rates of new product failure—once considered an inevitable cost of doing business—are now unacceptable. Today's thinner revenue streams, narrower margins, heightened competition, and more limited resources have, if anything, increased the already high levels of stress among corporate survivors and raised the performance bar set by business executives. That has prompted changes in the ways companies invest, manage, and innovate—changes designed to minimize risk.

Among the good management habits of innovative, high-performance companies:

Balance. Investments in breakthrough advancements were offset with spending on incremental innovations. While the rewards of home-run products are potentially very high, their associated risks are even higher. Winning companies don't bet all their chips on blue-sky projects.

Prioritize. Focus on product development projects that align with both market needs and the company's overall business strategy. Struggling to satisfy customer desires is only beneficial when it advances your company's longer-range objectives.

Analyze. Overcome the largest risk in product innovation—products that customers won't buy—by analyzing customer feedback quickly to ensure delivery of products the market is actually asking for. If a product idea is going to fail, or meet only 80 percent of customer expectations, it is a huge advantage to find that out as soon as possible, drop the idea, and move on to other, more appealing projects.

Automate. Top performers delivered products on time by using technology to manage requirements, administer workflow, and prioritize development. Too many companies rely on slower, less reliable manual processes.

There was also a flip side to the study's findings: challenges that consistently elude companies that are still struggling. Chief among them:

Not listening. Failure to hear and consider the expressed needs of customers. Those diverse voices must be considered, reconciled, and balanced to develop a truly successful product.

Not collaborating. Failing to share information and collaborate with customers, partners, suppliers, and other key stakeholders in exploring new ideas. For struggling companies, fewer than half their product ideas came from these sources.

Misalignment. Too often senior management and product-line staff fail to communicate, which often results in their spending time and money on the wrong product priorities.

Uncertainty. The lack of clear decision-making and confusion over product-line ownership leads to decisions based on internal politics, subjectivity, personal influence, and debate skills rather than product merits.

Paperwork. Paper-based methods and other traditional innovation management processes slow down the development life cycle, especially for complex products.

Poor execution. Struggling companies have trouble planning the resources needed to match market opportunities, difficulty managing multiple teams and regions, and a hard time managing the risks associated with new and existing products.

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Greening Fast Food Packaging

Dogwood Alliance’s report “Greening Fast Food Packaging: A Roadmap to Best Practices,” outlines eight key attributes of environmentally friendly fast food packaging, and provides guidance on how to assess environmental impacts in the supply chain. The report highlights leaders in the fast food industry. It also includes a survey to help assess a company’s current packaging.

1. Embrace Corporate Leadership on Sustainability
2. Use Full Life Cycle and Supply Chain Approach
3. Reduce Overall Packaging and Increase Efficiency
4. Increase the Use of Recycled Fiber
5. Eliminate Paper Originating from Controversial Forestry Practices
6. Increase In-Store Recycling and Recovery
7. Eliminate Toxic Inks, Coatings and Labels
8. Reduce Carbon Footprint

The full report is available at DogwoodAlliance

Cascades – Industrial Packaging, to exhibit at the 2013 International Boston Seafood Show

The International BostonSeafood Show is North America’s largest seafood trade show, which is taking place on March 10-12, 2013 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

Visit Cascades-IndustrialPackaging Booth #1180 to meet our friendly staff and learn more about our eco-friendly and innovative packaging solutions for the transport of fresh and frozen fish and seafood products.

THERMA-INSULATOR CONTAINERS

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Download Brochure: Speciality Container alternatives –Rethinking Processing and Conservation

Read more - ThermaFresh Box: RETHINKING fresh fish packingcontainers

Du Marketing Vert au Marketing Eco-responsable

Je vous invite à lire mon article publié dans le dernier numéro de la revue l’Actualité Alimentaire: Du Marketing Vert au Marketing Eco-responsable.

On pourrait penser  que "Vendre vert" aujourd'hui est plus facile que jamais. La preuve : tout le monde marketing semble avoir succombé à cette tendance. Surfer sur la vague verte n'est pourtant pas gage de ventes accrues, de nouvelles parts de marché ou de gains en termes d'images et de "branding".

Depuis plus de deux décennies, l’idée du développement durable s’est largement imposée. C’est tout naturellement que le marketing s’est emparé de nouveaux slogans apparus dans le sillage de ce concept phare répondant à l’intérêt grandissant d’un nombre croissant de citoyens-consommateurs pour la question environnementale. Cependant, le marketing vert n’a pas toujours su résister aux sirènes du « greenwashing ». Ce phénomène appelé aussi éco-blanchiment ou mascarade écologique, est le fait de tromper les consommateurs à propos des pratiques environnementales d’une entreprise ou des avantages environnementaux d’un produit ou d’un service.

Le marketing vert a trop longtemps reposé sur de simples prétentions non démontrées, jouant d’images confuses, voire trompeuses. Autrefois, option de facilité, le « greenwashing » se révèle être une ornière  dont il faut absolument sortir.  Plus que jamais, clarifier les messages du marketing vert est une priorité. L’heure est à l’humilité, au réalisme et à l’authenticité pour les entreprises qui entendent mettre en avant leurs bonnes pratiques environnementales ou mettre en marché des produits véritablement plus respectueux de l’environnement

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Nb: N'hésitez pas à me contacter (pak-bec@hotmail.com) si vous voulez consulter l'intégrale de cet article.