By Swati Solanki*
A Webinar on “bringing sustainability and innovation in food packaging post lockdown 4.0” held on 22 May, Friday at 11:00 am in India.
It Includes some speakers:
- Anand Ramanathan, Partner, Deloitte India (Moderator)
- Harish Kumar, Assistant Director – Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI)
- Ramesh Ramchandran, Associate Director – Food packaging sustainability – R&D, AMESA & APAC, PepsiCo
- Barun Banerjee, Head of packaging, Nestle India
- Dr. Ashok Tyagi, Executive Director, Haldiram’s
- S.N Venkatraman, Divisional Marketing Head, ITC
- Akshay Kanoria, Executive Director, TCPL Packaging
- Rhea M Singhal, Founder, Ecoware
The session was moderated by Anand Ramanathan, Partner, Del-oitte India.
The panelists shared insights on underlining the food safety and contamination risk involved in food packaging, reshaping the food packaging industry while keeping sustainability in the front seat and transformation through packaging innovation, while being compliant to the pandemic situation.
Barun Banerjee gives his point of view and says that we have to do risk assessment. We should use plastics that are reusable in home consumption.
In this webinar all the panelists discussed about concerns of food safety and an approach to staying ahead of the curve by adopting innovative yet sustainable packaging for food and beverages.
All the companies should not change their strategies but should innovate the old one for example Nestle is not looking to convert their stratergies but the Product categories, The channels, Route to market, E-Commerce should come up again and again. So the innovation has to be done in E- commerce Packaging, larger packaging formats. The packaging should provide us freshness and long shelf life. The value chain mapping should be good, So that the delivery will be faster. We should keep in mind these three pillars that is Right design, Right time, Right material should be used. Recycling is also very important. Food Safety is mandatory and is on priority. Ecofriendly material should be used.
They also discussed about NetSCo-FAN, a network of research & academic institutions working in the area of food & nutrition. It is the collection and development of database on food safety issues for risk assessment activities. The nut-ritional value of packaging should also be immersed. There is no quick fix here but yes the packaging material should inhibit the growth of microbes. Haldiram organises various sustainability programs to reduce the plastic use from food packaging. They supply plastic to various vendors like to various roads, cement industry etc.
The Covid-19 pandemic is bringing new challenges among businesses and pushing them to innovate and adopt flexible and sustainable food packaging solutions.
Summarising their words they said that recycling is the key factor for sustainable packaging. Home delivery should be preferred and the most important that manufacturing process should be taken in mind.
* Auhtor is Copy Editor in Food Marketing and Technology Magazine
