Amcor recently launched its European Innovation Center in Belgium, where it will work with brands and retailers from across Europe with the aim of designing more sustainable packaging. We spoke with two experts from the company – Kris Buysens, the director of the Innovation Center, and Toon Coppejans, Marketing Innovation Manager – to learn more about the work that will be taking place there.
Earlier this month, Amcor announced the opening of its European Innovation Center in Belgium. Could you give us a brief overview of this news, and explain how and why it came about?
KB: The Amcor Innovation Center was born out of multiple needs coming together.
First, from a packaging design and development point of view, we saw an opportunity to bring together under one roof two disciplines that often work in silos. Very often you will see a design team that works on packaging concepts. And then that design will go to a technical team who needs to translate that concept into reality.
What materials are available? Can it be produced at a reasonable cost? Will it run on the brand’s existing machines, or are new investments required? Will it be recyclable? Are there ways to lower the pack’s carbon footprint? A lot of time and effort can be lost in the translation between the two disciplines.
The Amcor Innovation Center Europe brings together marketers, packaging designers, material scientists, technical analysts, and production experts all in one place. The team is supported by a significant investment in technologies and machinery in Gent that allow them to test everything from consumer appeal to performance on brands’ packaging lines, to how easy the pack is to recycle.
We believe the shared knowledge and rapid exchange between these teams helps our customers reach meaningful packaging ideas faster – and we can support them step-by-step from concept all the way to store shelves.
This model was already a proven concept at our Innovation Center in the US (Neenah, Wisconsin) and South America, and follows the opening of our Innovation Center in Jiangyin, China in 2022.
The term ‘European Innovation Center’ is pretty general – I wonder if you could give us an idea of the layout of the centre and talk a bit about some of the key features, technologies and kit?
KB: In addition to the manufacturing buildings, the Amcor Innovation Center has three key packaging development and testing areas.
Our Material Science Center supports our R&D work on the development of innovative packaging materials, with a focus on sustainability. For example, the team tests and develops recycle-ready mono-material solutions, bio-based materials, and the integration of post-consumer recycled materials.
The Material Science Center has pilot lines (small-scale production lines) that help us produce test batches of materials. For example, the center has “mid-size” and “mini” extrusion lines that create packaging in 5-50 kg batches instead of the 500 kg production-size extruder.
It also includes an analytical lab for conducting a variety of tests. And it houses our E-Commerce Lab, where we can put both primary and secondary packaging through drop tests and other “stressors” to see how well it withstands the demands of e-commerce supply chains and shipping. In the E-Commerce lab, we can certify packaging according to ISTA-6 standards.
TC: The Customer Engagement Center is the newest addition to the Gent campus. It has beautiful meeting spaces to host creative sessions and co-development workshops with brand owners and retailers.
The Customer Engagement Center houses our Catalyst design team and R&D team (over 50 dedicated R&D people). It includes our prototyping lab, where the team can quickly create mock-ups and prototypes to test different packaging concepts with customers.
It also houses multiple spaces dedicated to consumer research. There is an observation room for conducting consumer focus groups. And we can test packaging for appeal and usability in real-world environments.
The Customer Engagement Center houses a retail simulation area (a store replica), plus a test kitchen, living room, and bathroom modeled after a typical European home. These spaces are complemented by technology that offers valuable insights, such as eye tracking to assess shelf-appeal, or special gloves to test if a pack is easy for someone with arthritis to open.
KB: The Packaging and Recycling Test Center is currently being completed on the Gent campus. It will house small-scale packing lines that replicate the filling machines used by brand owners and co-packers.
These are used for in-house machine trials to test the packaging’s performance on our customers’ production lines. This area will also house small scale recycling technology to test ease of recycling in the real world. For example, we can recycle our paper packaging and test the amount of paper fiber that is actually recovered at the end of the recycling process.
And what’s going to be happening on a daily basis at the centre – what are some of the key activities/projects?
TC: The key activity at the center is hosting a steady stream of customers in Gent. They come for everything from a creative workshop to a technical material trial. We are also launching something we call Amcor University, which are educational sessions for customers and others on everything from the basics of packaging to deep dives on sustainability. We plan to offer the first Amcor University sessions this Autumn.
How does this launch fit in with Amcor’s overall sustainability strategy?
KB: Amcor has pledged to develop all our packaging to be recyclable, compostable or reusable by 2025, and to significantly increase our use of recycled material. At the end of fiscal year 2023, 89% of our global flexible packaging portfolio was recycle-ready. Much of the work done at the Amcor Innovation Center Europe will help us to develop solutions for the remainder of our portfolio.
The Material Science Center focuses on driving down packaging’s carbon footprint; for instance, by introducing recycle-ready mono-material solutions that can meet the same performance requirements as common mixed-material solutions; bio-based and recycled polymer alternatives; high-barrier paper; and vapor-deposited nanocoating.
The soon-to-be-added Recycling Test Center delivers more sustainable solutions through real-world testing. It evaluates the recyclability of different packages using industry-standard methodologies. It can, for instance, check the amount of paper fibers recovered after a pack goes through the paper recycling process.
A number of other Amcor Innovation Centres have been launched in the past few years – from South America to Asia-Pacific. What are some key learnings/developments from these existing centres?
TC: First, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Through our global innovation centers, we have learned how to best apply package design innovations to meet the unique needs for our customers, and their consumers, within each geographical region.
With the differing markets, retail channels, and sustainability challenges around the globe, we meet each customer where they are in their packaging development journey and bring solutions that best fit their needs.
The key benefit of Amcor’s Global Innovation Center Network is that we have a global R&D organization that has visibility over all of these customer and consumer trends, performance needs, and sustainability requirements around the globe. This knowledge is shared and leveraged as we bring the best ideas and products to our customers around the world.
Each regional innovation center is nuanced to the geographic region it is in, to best serve the market needs for our customers within that region, however they also offer customers a lens into what else is happening around the world in package development, sustainability, and end-user experience. This helps customers to envision “what’s next” as they strategize their packaging journey.
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