FEATURE Food & Beverage


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Protecting premium Food & Beverage brand integrity


Packaging expert at Sumitomo (SHI) Demag UK, Ashlee Gough, examines how specialist closure and thin-wall moulders are applying the latest injection moulding precision and In-Mould Labelling (IML) techniques to step up the fight against counterfeiting, mitigating risks and safeguarding brand integrity


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n a recent survey of senior food and drink executives by assurance specialists The Lloyd’s Register, only a third admitted to vetting suppliers


against a recognised GFSI standard. One in fi ve declared that no checks were made as part of sourcing decisions. Yet, despite these prevalent risks, 97% stated that they’d been aff ected by food fraud in the last 12 months – few in the industry regard authenticating products as their highest priority. Against this backdrop, the UK food and drink market remains one of the worst aff ected by counterfeiting. Deliberately packaged to deceive consumers, the Food Standard Agency’s National Food Crime Unit estimates that the combination of adulteration, substitution, theft, misrepresentation, illegal processing, waste diversion and document fraud costs £11.97bn per annum. Seizures of counterfeit products provide a good indication of the scale of the problem. In 2020, Operation OPSON IX seized 12,000 tonnes of illegal and potentially harmful products, including 1.2m litres of alcohol.


Not easily copied In a converted eff ort to crackdown on groups profi ting from illicit versions of branded spirits and premium foods, manufacturers are making labels more diffi cult to copy and bottles harder to refi ll. One way to counteract counterfeiting and product tampering is through innovative design of packaging that cannot be easily copied. Until recently, this may have involved putting shrink or foil sleeve around


16 October 2022 | Automation


a luxury drink brand, for example. Closure moulders especially are stepping up their eff orts and investing in dedicated cells to produce high quality and anti-refi ll closures made up of several complex parts. Due to the intricacy of these closures, moulding precision is paramount. Signifi cant investment in high-quality tooling, automation, machinery and expertise can be another major deterrent. Realistically, few counterfeit operators would make the level of investment required to replicate this level of technical precision.


Concealing


Other overt packaging methods to deter counterfeits include concealing unique identifi ers, such as QR codes, holograms and tags within the IML. While these can assist with track and tracing, they only really help to validate the origin of a container and tend to be more widely used by luxury food, cosmetics, pharmaceutical and wellbeing brands. To outsmart quick-witted counterfeiters, manufacturers may need to use several tactics simultaneously to prevent brand


value being diluted, including tamper- evident bands, secure closures, snap buttons, barcoded labels and batch codes, and even chemical markers.


For packaging moulders producing thin- walled containers, caps and closures by the millions, cost eff ectiveness remains vital. Sumitomo (SHI) Demag’s El-Exis SP range typically enables 3-5% more productivity when benchmarked against other packaging machines on the market. Now in its fourth generation and always aligned to evolving market trends, the EL-Exis SP series is designed to withstand the higher stresses and injection pressures that are so critical in achieving repeatability in closures and thin-walled packaging products, whilst maintaining comparable mechanical properties. Centralised monitoring of real-time machine performance and energy consumption is equally critical to reducing machine downtime.


http://uk.sumitomo-shi-demag.eu/ CONTACT:


Sumitomo (SHI) Demag


automationmagazine.co.uk


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