Shelling out on shrimp: How Vietnam is bucking the pandemic with spate of agri-food investment Vietnam has been singled out its agri-food resilience and strong likelihood to recover from the current coronavirus-inspired chaos thanks to considerable investment in its shrimp, pork and poultry sectors.
In comparison, Vietnam is relatively well placed to come back from the crisis, according to a report by Oxford Economics, which was commissioned by regional food industry lobbyist Food Industry Asia.
A strong recovery is critical for Vietnam, where more than half of employment is in the agri-food sector far more than in the other countries assessed in the study. In 2019, the sector contributed US$86bn to the economy, equivalent to 26% of total GDP.
Carbon neutral packaging from Elopak As dairies look to reduce their carbon footprint, packaging is an important piece of the puzzle.
Patrick Verhelst, chief marketing officer at Elopak, said the sustainability credentials of packaging solutions vary considerably.
“Choosing the right pack has several potential benefits for dairies,” Verhelst said.
“The first in reducing the overall carbon footprint of a finished product, and the second in ensuring the product is kept safe and fresh, helping to minimize waste. Packaging can also help to communicate the dairy’s commitment to the environment.”
While weighing up the options on offer can be a daunting process, it is worth noting beverage cartons have strong environmental credentials when compared with alternatives such as plastic bottles, Verhelst said. A 2018 Lifecycle Assessment study showed that, in the case of UHT milk, cartons result in 70.7% less CO
SIG’s Paper U-straw has made its commercial debut, with Spain’s CAPSA Food utilizing it for its ‘Central Lechera Asturiana’ whole milk on SIG’s combiblocSmall 200ml carton packs.
GEA launches thermoforming packaging technology for products up to 100mm high GEA has launched the latest version of its SKIN thermoforming packaging technology: PowerPak SKIN.50.
This provides processors of sliced products, including hard cheese, with high-capacity packing of products of up to 100mm high that protrude up to 50mm above the level of the packing tray. The PowerPak SKIN.50 can also perform vacuum and modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) packaging on the same machine.
GEA said the thermoforming packaging machine brings together the highest production capacity currently available with the minimum of wrinkles in the finished package. GEA has achieved the high capacity through engineering that gives an index length up to 600mm, up to eight tracks and four rows of product. Quality enhancements have been achieved by using a new top film guiding and pre-heating station. This avoids tapering of the film and makes the top film easier to form, which
‘Wildly ambitious’: Nestle Australia cites collection and processes as main barriers to recycled plastic wrapper roll-out Nestle Australia has revealed that scaling-up processes such as curbside plastic collection and chemical recycling are the main barriers in any plans to widely commercialise its recently-prototyped recycled plastic wrapper, urging industry and government collaboration to overcome these challenges.
The wrapper, created for KitKat, recently made a lot of headlines as
‘Australia s first soft plastic food wrapper made with recycled content’ but Nestle Australia has stressed that this is just a prototype for now, aiming to
‘demonstrate what is technically possible’.
“Of course we’d love to bring this to market, but currently gaps still exists between this prototype we’ve created and commercialising the wrapper in any significant scale that require every single part of the recycling system in Australia to think