30 years of Scottish Aquaculture Background O
n a visit to the dock area of Grimsby, ‘Eu- rope’s Food Town’, I
was shocked to see the extent of the waste polystyrene blow- ing about the town. I made a pledge to myself to rid the town of this scourge, and set about seeking an alternative to EPS for the salmon industry, which seemed to be the larg- est user of the material. This was back in 1992, and the quest began with many visits to Norway and Scotland, where my company, Tri-Pack, organised a variety of trials of what was then known as ‘Coolorry’ pack. The market was not ready for alterna- tives of any sort throughout the 90’s, however, despite the explosion in the growth of salmon farming, and the vast increase in waste EPS that this expansion had brought about. Then, in 2001-2, it became apparent that waste issues were beginning to cause real problems all over Europe. This coincided with an increased public awareness of the need to recycle. In the UK, the initial demand to do away with EPS came from leading supermarkets, which found that burying contaminated EPS was tanta- mount to a social sin. How- ever, Tri-Pack had developed a solution to this problem – a recyclable alternative under the brand name of CoolSeal. Consequently, in 2002, sales of the material to the white- fish and processed salmon sector took off and have since doubled every year for five years. There are now millions of packs used every year for transit of iced fish in northern Europe, as well as airfreight packs used as far afield as Tahiti.
Current situation Trade circumstances have changed dramatically in the last 10 years, and the cold chain is now 90 per cent secure, making EPS boxes something of an overkill. The industry has consolidated and there is a general aware- ness of environmental issues, with concerns about matters such as sustainability, carbon footprints and recycling com- ing to the fore. As a result
Tri-Pack now seeks to identify the perfect packaging for the industry, based both on the packers’ requirements and the new environmental concerns. It has, therefore, sought to make a pack that has the fol- lowing attributes: • A cost-effective price. • Can slot into existing automated lines – including conveyors, auto-fillers, label systems, icing and strapping machinery.
• Can free up space for other functions.
• Will involve minimum management time to make the change.
There have been great strides forward in the machin- ery capability of processing PP. We can now simultaneously give the salmon industry enor- mous financial benefits and a greatly improved environmen- tal impact.
The final packs have been proven to have significant improvements regarding fish quality. The CoolSeal box enables fish temperatures to reach 1 degree between 15 and 20 hours sooner than it would in PP packaging, thus enhancing the quality of the salmon before it is processed. Other benefits to the receiver include:
• Lowering the height of pal- lets, thus enabling decanting to be better from a health and safety point of view.
• Ending EPS debris, and the possibility of financial gain from waste recovery. • Providing an extra day of product shelf life before
Sales of the
material have
doubled every year
for five years
www.fishfarmer-magazine.com
processing is required. • Reducing the number of pallet movements needed.
And, although the PP boxes appear smaller, they have an increased capacity. We know we can get an extra fish in every box, and use less ice. This means that a packer can use 20 per cent fewer boxes for the same weight of fish, as well as producing a 20 per cent reduction in pallets, straps and labels. This applies to all but the largest fish, for which the PP container capac- ity is the same as in traditional EPS boxes.
Future developments Tri-Pack have commis- sioned an investigation by the Grimsby Institute in order to add scientific evidence to the claim that salmon boxed in PP is in better condition when despatched through a reason- able cold chain. Tri-Pack is also investing in recycling equipment, with the main intention of creating a working model to demon- strate how the spent boxes can be recovered – at a profit! We believe these are the final actions needed to establish Coolseal as the standard package for the next genera- tion. We also believe that it will soon be obvious that to crush or reduce down EPS, just so that it can be sent to China for processing, is an unacceptable practice on several levels. For starters, this practice may well be stopped by the Chinese, who do not appreciate having
The slimline PP design
TRI-PACK PLASTICS
protein imported into their country in this way. And we also intend to demonstrate, once and for all, that spent PP salmon boxes are a valuable raw material with limitless markets in Europe. The need for leak-proof lightweight airfreight packs, for both whole and proc- essed salmon, has grown. The increase in added-value fillets will also demand find- ing unique selling points, and packaging is one way of achieving this. This is already happening in the transport of other species – we sell black boxes for shellfish, for example, making for superb presentation. Tri-Pack recognises that to make such a radical packag- ing switch after 40 years of using EPS is a major manage- ment decision, which requires all aspects in the chain to be prepared. However, if the re- tailers are serious about their environmental statements, then the change is imminent, and will bring significant ben- efits to producers and receiv- ers alike.
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