Day four of the world's leading beverage technology fair brought glimpses of the next technological advances in packaging. Here are eight things that caught Packaging Europe's eye today:
1. Cambridge Consultants, the global technology fixers, have developed a prototype smart recycling point which visually inspects packaging before showing the consumer the correct recycling stream. It's am ingenious idea for possible point-of-sale or high street applications, with potential to change behaviour patterns as well as feeding back data to prompt a natural engagement with the consumer.
2. Scott White of PragmatIC talked through the brewing revolution in flexible electronics. Some brands have successfully experimented with near field communications in premium and promotional contexts but the emergence of flexible electronics is set to make it feasible to scale up to mass market volumes. NFC can accrue value across the supply chain, first providing trackability down to individual SKUs and later creating opportunities to engage consumers. Expect to see more and more of this in CPG - and thereafter further extensions, with added sensor functionality and increasing processing power.
3. Ecolab is on a mission to meet the challenge of the world's water deficit, which is growing alarmingly fast. Dr Geoff Townsend outlined a holistic approach, starting with rigorous economic assessment of the cost and value of water in the given region, an IIOT approach to collecting and crunching data, and managing what they have measured with a host of innovative filtration and recycling technologies.
4. Aptar are moving the beverage closures market forward with a new generation of non-detachable tamper-evident closures; and with a beautifully rigorous and tactile squeezy closure that makes for easy dispensing from a 5-litre bottle.
5. What's the next big trend in the packaged beverage market? We think it might be cold brew coffee. Refreshing, subtle notes - and attracting attention of the big brand owners. It's also going to feature increasingly on draught in the hospitality sector.
6. Chatting to Tetra Pak. 100% bio-based packs with sugarcane-derived polymers, introduced a while ago, are already on shelves in Germany and the UK. Meanwhile, a lot of current R&D efforts are going into recycling technologies, developing alternatives to the aluminium barrier layer - expect the big announcement by around 2020 - and Tetra Pak's own iteration of Industry 4.0.
7. Speaking of Industry 4.0, we were impressed by this beverage line quality control system from Arol Closure Systems, which can easily installed on existing lines:
8. ...and a reminder that sophisticated innovation and engineering effort often boils down to the evocation of simplicity. An example of CCL's 'enlabeling' solutions:
