10.24.18
Uflex’s Waterless Internet Flower Packaging won two awards at the 2018 Sustainability Awards that took place at Scanpack in Gothenburg, Sweden.
The packaging won the overall Sustainability Award along with the top prize in the Resource Efficiency category.
Sustainability Awards, hosted by Packaging Europe, is a comprehensive and rigorously judged initiative that recognizes the packaging industry’s top achievement in innovative packaging design, material, technologies and processes. The competition challenges the industry to take a holistic approach to sustainability and to bring out the best ideas around improving the environmental footprint of packaging.
Uflex’s Waterless Internet Flower Packaging is based on Active Modified Atmospheric Packaging Technology. Uflex engineered Flexfresh, a special proprietary patented polymeric film for offering packaging solution for fresh fruits, vegetables and flowers.
This special proprietary polymeric substrate is the first biodegradable (by composting) film that maintains the hydration of flowers during transpiration (evaporation causing loss of moisture during respiration) thus creating a closed loop system. Flowers are put to slow respiration mode by reducing the oxygen availability preventing excess oxidation and dehydration. The film keeps the flowers breathing in hydrated oxygen and release excess humidity keeping them touch dry. The flowers can go without water for 20 days as the humidity is fed back into the flower when it continues to breathe in the modified atmosphere and further seven days in a vase.
“This has been a great year for Uflex with our innovation Waterless Internet Flower Packaging walking away with top honors at the Sustainability Award and another win just a month back at the Dow Packaging Awards,” said Ashok Chaturvedi, CMD of Uflex Limited. “The awards are a reaffirmation of our efforts in optimizing sustainability footprint and business performance standards to deliver the highest levels of quality.”
“In addition to multiplying the shelf-life and slashing energy consumption in the supply chain for flowers, Uflex is applying Flexfresh to a wide range of fruits and vegetables,” said N. Siva Shankaran, VP, Flexfresh at Uflex. “Flexfresh brings in significant competitive edge to supermarkets around the world for providing sustainable solutions to their fresh produce packaging. Uflex is currently testing its new improved Flexfresh with high clarity which could replace conventional bags/pouches in supermarket shelves.”
Added Tim Sykes, Packaging Europe’s head of content: “The ever-growing engagement in the Sustainability Awards reflects the increased urgency with which consumers and regulators have demanded solutions to environmental problems associated with packaging in the past few years. Not only that, but it also reflects the serious thought and investment the whole packaging value chain has been putting into sustainability. In selecting it as the overall winner of this year's competition, our expert independent judging panel has endorsed Uflex’s Waterless Internet Flower Packaging as a clear case of sustainable innovation which creates significant energy reductions in the supply chain.”
The 2018 edition of the Sustainability Awards chose winners in six categories: Resource Efficiency, Driving the Circular Economy, Bio-Based Packaging, Best Practice, Machinery, and Recyclable Packaging. The overall winner of the Sustainability Awards was chosen from the shortlisted entries in these six categories. The awards received over 100 innovative submissions, which were graded by a 17-member independent, expert judging panel representing the breadth of the European packaging value chain.
The packaging won the overall Sustainability Award along with the top prize in the Resource Efficiency category.
Sustainability Awards, hosted by Packaging Europe, is a comprehensive and rigorously judged initiative that recognizes the packaging industry’s top achievement in innovative packaging design, material, technologies and processes. The competition challenges the industry to take a holistic approach to sustainability and to bring out the best ideas around improving the environmental footprint of packaging.
Uflex’s Waterless Internet Flower Packaging is based on Active Modified Atmospheric Packaging Technology. Uflex engineered Flexfresh, a special proprietary patented polymeric film for offering packaging solution for fresh fruits, vegetables and flowers.
This special proprietary polymeric substrate is the first biodegradable (by composting) film that maintains the hydration of flowers during transpiration (evaporation causing loss of moisture during respiration) thus creating a closed loop system. Flowers are put to slow respiration mode by reducing the oxygen availability preventing excess oxidation and dehydration. The film keeps the flowers breathing in hydrated oxygen and release excess humidity keeping them touch dry. The flowers can go without water for 20 days as the humidity is fed back into the flower when it continues to breathe in the modified atmosphere and further seven days in a vase.
“This has been a great year for Uflex with our innovation Waterless Internet Flower Packaging walking away with top honors at the Sustainability Award and another win just a month back at the Dow Packaging Awards,” said Ashok Chaturvedi, CMD of Uflex Limited. “The awards are a reaffirmation of our efforts in optimizing sustainability footprint and business performance standards to deliver the highest levels of quality.”
“In addition to multiplying the shelf-life and slashing energy consumption in the supply chain for flowers, Uflex is applying Flexfresh to a wide range of fruits and vegetables,” said N. Siva Shankaran, VP, Flexfresh at Uflex. “Flexfresh brings in significant competitive edge to supermarkets around the world for providing sustainable solutions to their fresh produce packaging. Uflex is currently testing its new improved Flexfresh with high clarity which could replace conventional bags/pouches in supermarket shelves.”
Added Tim Sykes, Packaging Europe’s head of content: “The ever-growing engagement in the Sustainability Awards reflects the increased urgency with which consumers and regulators have demanded solutions to environmental problems associated with packaging in the past few years. Not only that, but it also reflects the serious thought and investment the whole packaging value chain has been putting into sustainability. In selecting it as the overall winner of this year's competition, our expert independent judging panel has endorsed Uflex’s Waterless Internet Flower Packaging as a clear case of sustainable innovation which creates significant energy reductions in the supply chain.”
The 2018 edition of the Sustainability Awards chose winners in six categories: Resource Efficiency, Driving the Circular Economy, Bio-Based Packaging, Best Practice, Machinery, and Recyclable Packaging. The overall winner of the Sustainability Awards was chosen from the shortlisted entries in these six categories. The awards received over 100 innovative submissions, which were graded by a 17-member independent, expert judging panel representing the breadth of the European packaging value chain.