10/17/2023

Sustainable packaging solution: How Madeta a.s. innovates in the field of packaging

Sustainability and innovation are key words in many industries today. At Madeta, we also strive to find the optimal solution that respects not only the needs of our business but also the environment.

History and context

Madeta a.s. has a rich history going back more than a century. As a traditional Czech food company, we have been producing dairy products since our foundation. Our main focus has been and still is the production of natural cheeses, but our portfolio covers the entire dairy spectrum.

When we talk about packaging, sustainability becomes a key aspect of our strategy. With a diverse product portfolio, we use a wide range of packaging materials. We constantly strive to ensure that our packaging is not only high quality and economical, but also sustainable.

The challenge of sustainability

Food packaging presents a specific challenge. It is essential to ensure that our products are safely packaged and protected, but we must also minimise the negative environmental impact of our packaging. This means we are looking for a compromise between reducing packaging weight, increasing recycled content and using mono-materials.

Our solution

We have introduced an innovative solution - reducing the printed area and the amount of ink on shelf-ready packaging. We use a corrugated cardboard group board that makes maximum use of recycled content and is FSC certified. With water-based inks, we achieve greener printing and reduce the need for inks.

And what's the best part? The implementation of this solution did not require any significant changes to the production process. Costs were minimal, especially in graphics changeover time.

The results speak for themselves

Since implementing this solution, we have achieved an 83% ink savings. The original print coverage was 59%, but we have now optimised this to just 10%. In addition to reducing purchase prices, we have achieved many other benefits such as saving 14.4kg of polymer printing plates, using a 100% recyclable solution and more.

Conclusion

With this project, we plan to gradually reduce the printed area on all our shelf ready packaging. We have seen that even small changes can have a big impact. We encourage other companies to approach sustainable packaging solutions with a holistic view of the packaging lifecycle, looking for the optimal solution for all stages.