One-third of the food produced globally is lost between production and consumption. Stora Enso, a leader in renewable packaging, is looking for innovative material providers to help fight that issue with advanced renewable and recyclable food packaging solutions, which would sufficiently preserve their contents and enable recyclability or reusability of the packaging materials.
Opportunity overview
Food packaging solutions must fulfill the demanding but crucial task of preserving foodstuffs on grocery store shelves, takeaway boxes, and home delivery bags. At the same time, the recyclability of food packaging materials is increasingly essential for Stora Enso, its customers, and consumers. Stora Enso is already combating these issues by providing fiber-based food packaging materials to replace plastic.
We want to avoid the pressure on scarce natural resources even more by bringing the shelf life and safety of sustainable packaging to the level of fossil-based ones. While fossil-based materials are still prevalent in the market, there is an increased interest in reaching a maximum renewable fiber content in packaging for full recyclability. Yet, food safety regulations and competition between distribution chains and recycling sector capabilities limit the opportunities.
The Packaging Materials division at Stora Enso provides high-quality renewable materials based on both virgin and recycled fiber to promote a circular economy. Our wide selection of barrier coatings enables demanding use cases for our packaging, including perishable foodstuffs. We want to reduce the amount of fossil-based components in packaging materials without compromising high protection and performance to address our customers’ needs.
Your opportunity with Stora Enso
Our goal is to protect, preserve, and promote our customers’ products with our materials while allowing for environmental sustainability and cost-effectiveness. Bioplastics or materials consisting of up to 95% cellulose fiber are examples of promising material solutions for sustainability. However, fossil-based barriers are still more widely used due to their price, protection, availability, and conversion efficiency.
We seek bio-based barriers or nanomaterials for renewal packaging that enable high food protection. In addition, sustainability and food safety can also be improved by other means, such as circular packaging or innovative solutions for food condition tracking. We seek cooperation partners with creative ideas in renewable packaging materials or barriers, new circular packaging concepts, or smart layers in food packaging materials. Read a few examples below, considering that your solutions may go above and beyond them or even be completely different.
Examples we're looking for
Bio-based materials for packaging
We want to replace fossil-based food packaging components, whether monomers, barriers, or sealing materials. The material solutions would need to fulfill food safety regulations and be recyclable and biodegradable. Use cases in the food packaging industry differ from flexible packaging to home delivery of greasy foods, so bear in mind that we are looking for a wide variety of solutions. You do not need to be able to provide an entire packaging solution either – we are happy to co-create sustainable packaging offerings using our existing materials and your solutions combined. Do you have something to offer in food-safe, functional, and sustainable packaging materials?
New concepts for circular packaging
Single-use packaging is increasingly important, mainly due to food delivery and take-away. We want to find solutions for reusable or recyclable/compostable delivery packaging, with access to production and existing solutions for end-of-life. We are looking for both packaging concepts and business-to-consumer reuse business models. What do you have to offer to this challenge?
Smart layers in food packaging
The functionality of packaging can also be improved through intelligent add-on solutions. We want to make it easier for the supply chain and consumer to increase further the shelf-life and quality preservation of sustainably packed food. We believe this can be achieved with innovations integrated into our renewable products. How would you solve this challenge?
Stora Enso
Part of the global bioeconomy, Stora Enso is a leading provider of renewable products in packaging, biomaterials, and wooden construction and one of the largest private forest owners in the world. We believe that everything that is made from fossil-based materials today can be made from a tree tomorrow.
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