With the rapid development of productive forces in various countries, the problems of environmental pollution and waste of resources are becoming increasingly severe. As one of the leading brands in the ice cream industry, Heluxue has joined hands with its brands such as Menglong and Cuaiduo to continue to promote green environmental protection, energy conservation and emission reduction and other related measures. At the same time, Heluxue has also innovated the use of degradable plastic packaging in Cuaiduo and Menglong ice cream, and has won a number of domestic and foreign awards with cases such as plastic reduction packaging.
At the IPIF International Packaging Innovation Conference held on October 13, 2023, Heluxue's plastic-reduced packaging case won the silver award, and last month, Heluxue won the CPIS 2023 M life Award for its packaging innovation case at the 14th China Packaging Innovation and Sustainable Development Forum (CPIS 2023).
Unilever Ice Cream Packaging Wins Two Packaging Innovation Awards
As one of the world's largest ice cream brands, Heluxue delivers happiness through ice cream, in addition to bringing consumers a delicious and pleasant experience anytime and anywhere, Heluxue pays great attention to environmental protection and sustainability issues. Since 2017, Unilever, a subsidiary of Luxue, has changed its plastic packaging method with the idea of "reduce, optimize, and zero plastic" to achieve the goal of reducing the use of plastic and achieving the sustainable development of plastic recycling, and now this strategy has achieved considerable results. Among them, the ice cream packaging has achieved a pure paper-based structure for most of the products in its Menglong, Cuaido, Millefeuille, and Luxue brand series through design innovation. As well as the use of ** materials as the liner of the transport box, the Menglong brand reduces the use of more than 35 tons of virgin plastic.
Tracing back to the source, and Luxue innovates the design of plastic-reducing packaging.
Because ice cream products need to maintain a low temperature environment in transportation and storage, condensation is easy to appear on the packaging, and conventional paper packaging is easy to become damp and soft, which affects the appearance of the product, so ice cream packaging has high waterproof and low temperature resistance requirements. At present, the more mainstream way on the market is to use the process of paper surface coating to ensure better waterproof performance, but the laminated paper causes difficulties for the first time, and also increases the use of plastics.
Together with Luxue, we have developed a non-laminated product box suitable for cold chain transportation of ice cream. In the process of development, the main difficulty lies in the waterproof performance and appearance of the outer box of the product
Conventional laminated packaging, thanks to the existence of plastic film on the surface, it is difficult for condensation to infiltrate into the paper fiber through the surface of the paper to affect the physical properties of the paper, and it is not easy to crack after bending. The non-laminated packaging box must not only pass the waterproof performance test of Unilever standards, but also ensure that the overall printing and appearance of the form and effect are not affected.
Based on these two needs, Heluxue has carried out many rounds of lengthy tests on the research and development of this packaging, and the experimental products have been tested and compared with the actual use effect in various offline display freezers, and finally verified the hydrophobic varnish and paper material that meet the requirements and successfully applied this non-laminated packaging box.
Mini cute pure paper packaging box that uses hydrophobic varnish instead of laminating process].
Green can be **, Menglong will recycle packaging plastics.
Due to the peculiarity of its shape (wrapped in chocolate crispy), it is very fragile, so the protective performance of the packaging is required, and the bottom of the outer box has been cushioned with EPE (expandable polyethylene) as a cushioning layer.
In the process of changing the material of EPE liner from virgin plastic to recycled material, due to the difference between the performance of recycled material and virgin plastic, multiple rounds of testing and verification are required to ensure that the performance of EPE liner made of recycled material can meet the protective requirements in the process of logistics and transportation.
At the same time, from the perspective of the first business, the material process control of reused materials is also a very important link, which requires the first business to standardize and control their upstream raw materials and internal production. We have conducted several rounds of discussions and optimization with the leading companies to ensure the production and use specifications of recycled materials, and also conducted a large number of tests and verifications through third-party laboratories, and finally successfully changed the EPE liner from virgin plastic to recycled amount, reducing the use of about 35 tons of virgin plastic.
Use an EPE liner made of plastic
In addition to the promotion of the above projects such as the brand's "plastic reduction packaging" and Menglong ice cream's "first-class lining", as early as last year, Menglong's parent company and Luxue built the first world-class ice cream "lighthouse factory" in Jiangsu, further implementing the concepts of digital intelligence, intelligent manufacturing, green and sustainable from the source of production, and reducing carbon emissions in the production process. Whether it is a lighthouse factory or a plastic reduction action, it is not difficult to see that Heluxue's efforts on the road to sustainability are imperative