New tool released to help make food packaging sustainable.
The Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC) is the peak body for manufacturing in Australia and is an advocate for the food industry at all levels of government.
It is constantly reviewing the industry to identify issues that new addressing and will often set up forms and other groups to review these and determine actions the AFGC can take to assist the industry. One of the best examples of this is the Allergen Bureau. This is an AFGC body that has developed the brilliant allergen labelling system called VITAL and a whole list of allergen control methods. It is considered to be the body for allergen control development in our food industry.
Recently the AFGC has been working on the issue of sustainability in the food industry and particularly the importance of all packaging being sustainable.
As a result it has just launched a Toolkit or set of guidelines that should be followed by all food manufacturers to ensure that they meet the requirements of the Packaging Covenant.
The Packaging Covenant is a voluntary agreement that manufacturers can sign up to , which commits them to responsibility for their packaging from development through to the customer and beyond. It is all about product lifecycle and means that manufacturers really need to be considering and building in sustainability from the very first point of design to allow for what will happen with that packaging when the consumer is finished with it.
The new Toolkit will help all food manufacturers meet this Covenant and be able to claim that their packaging stream is indeed sustainable.
It can be found at http://www.packagingcovenant.org.au/toolkit/