Coveris helps Irish Dog Foods switch to recyclable packaging

Pet food producers Irish Dog Foods Ltd is being assisted with its aims to achieve a balance between changing market demands and brand positioning at the point of sale by packaging supplier Coveris.

By choosing Coveris’ MonoFlexE brand, Irish Dog Foods’ sustainability requirements have been met with no effect on packaging quality.

To meet the changing market demands driven by the more environmentally aware younger generations of dog lovers, Irish Dog Foods co-operated with the technical team at Coveris to become one of the first pet food producers in the UK offering recyclable and premium packaging in bigger sizes.

The project’s aimed to switch from bags with a PET/PE structure to a monomaterial PE structure and thus full recyclability.

Philippe Poudens, Key Account Manager Pet Food at Coveris, said: "We were able to provide bigger bags with the same benefits as our standard structures with a matte finish, while reducing the carbon footprint and preserving the environment, which was one of the key challenges for our customer."

Jamie Queally, Purchase manager at Irish Dog Foods, added: "We wanted to be one of the first to offer recyclable bags on the market, but we didn't want it to impact our production process and machinery. Coveris was able to provide us with a new, recyclable material, however, with the same characteristics as our previous bags with the PET/PE structure.”

Coveris’ co-operation with other companies is not limited to brand-owners and retailers but extends across the value chain and on into the UK Plastics Pact, which aims to drive change in the way packaging is designed, produced, used, reused, and disposed of.

Coveris also fosters its own in-house mission known as the ‘NO WASTE’ initiative, which aims to provide an eco-efficient, high-performance packaging solutions operation. The monomaterial solution for Irish Dog Food meets one of the four targets of the UK Plastics’ Pact, which is to transform 100% of plastics packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025.

I recently visited Coveris’ Winsford manufacturing site where I witnessed first-hand the extra steps being taken by the packaging manufacturer in order to meet its NO WASTE requirements. The site now includes an in-house recycling centre where value chain collaboration is highly visible. With recycling machinery from EREMA, PLASMAC, and NGR, as well as material handling solutions from Summit Systems, any casual visitor to the recycling centre there would find it difficult to conclude that packaging manufacturers such as Coveris are not taking their environmental responsibilities seriously.

Keep an eye out for BP&R Magazine’s April edition for more details on my visit with Coveris’ technical, sales and sustainability experts.