A survey commissioned by the Confederation of Paper Industries (CPI) Corrugated Sector has shown that corrugated retail ready packaging (RRP) is becoming an “increasing necessity” for the UK food and beverage manufacturing industry.
A telephone poll of 100 companies, all fmcg corrugated packaging customers (80 CATI quantitative and 20 in-depth qualitative interviews), found that 79% of respondents rated corrugated retail ready packaging as their first choice packaging material.
And 83% agreed with the statement that ‘corrugated RRP helps promote product or brand in store’.
The survey also revealed that the majority of those contacted believe that corrugated RRP is either very or extremely helpful in meeting corporate or government targets on environmental issues.
CPI says that it believes these statistics confirm corrugated cardboard as “the complete solution for transit and point of sale packaging”, making it “the ideal and most sustainable material for fulfilling logistics expectations throughout the food and drinks supply chain”.
CPI director of packaging affairs Andy Barnetson said: “Protection of goods and cost also score highly in the CPI survey as key advantages for using corrugated packaging.
“This clearly demonstrates the need for the UK corrugated industry to remain at the forefront of innovation by continuing to produce sustainable, retail ready packaging with quality printing that makes products eye-catching at the point of sale.
“To meet the expectations of the food and drinks industry the corrugated packaging sector in the UK is pioneering packaging solutions that bring increased sustainability to the supply chain as well as investing significantly in new equipment.”
CPI says the results of the survey indicate that the industry “appears to be getting the balance right between functionality and presentation”.
CPI represents the supply chain for paper, comprising recovered paper merchants, paper and board manufacturers and converters, corrugated packaging producers and makers of soft tissue papers, representing 70 member companies from an industry with an aggregate annual turnover of £5 billion, employing 25,000 people directly and more than 100,000 indirectly.
Over 80% of all corrugated cardboard boxes in the UK are recycled, giving the corrugated industry the best UK recycling rate of all packaging materials.
