Conservation of Ressources

PACKAGING SOLUTIONS

The key aspects for us with regard to the packaging are the product safety (shelf life, hygiene, freshness), the recyclability and/or sustainability, the visual appearance and the price. In order to be able to perform at an optimum here, we are continuously investing in packaging technology to ensure that we are always up to date with regards to technology.

We work closely with our suppliers to always ensure the safest packaging. Food is a sensitive product and flawless packaging is required to be able to supply impeccable quality with the required shelf life. We always strive to use materials which are as sustainably as possible and to present them in a visually appealing way.

Examples of this are our selected meat packagings: We were the first company to use the FlatSkin® procedure and to actively offer it to customers. For this procedure, product media made of cardboard from sustainable bleached or unbleached fresh fibres and film are used, which can be disposed separately. The materials are printed on both sides with low-migration paints and varnishes and are laminated with a protective polymer layer. A highly transparent barrier skin film fixes the product directly on the flat cardboard medium. A peel strip facilitates the opening of the packaging. After the product has been removed, the thin plastic coating at the bottom is simply removed from the box and disposed separately.

Here you are able to find the press article on the FlatSkin® procedure and further information.

Also, in the fresh meat area, we are continuously testing trays which do not require any absorbent liner and have a lighter grammage or also pure composite films that are compostable and degradable.

For the self-service range (convenience products, meat and sausage produce, etc.) we are primarily working on optimising the film thicknesses. For individual trays (e.g. for fresh minced meat), savings in the film thickness from 18 g to 14 g have already been implemented, without having a negative impact on the product quality. This results in a reduction in plastic of 22%. With special products such as "Minced meat with more animal welfare", the first eTray available on the Austrian market has been introduced. In this case, the tray weight has been reduced from 18 g to only 10 g (45% reduction in plastic). The protective function of plastic is upheld – the missing stability is compensated by the usage of a recycling cardboard.

The recycling percentage for export boxes is approx. 59%.

COLLABORATION WITH SCIENCE

Under the research project RE(D)SOURCE, the Austrian Research Institute for Chemicals and Technology (OFI) is determining the optimisation and savings potential of packaging currently in use. We are a reference partner with our plant in Linz and have already been able to achieve first successes in the reduction of film thicknesses by 10%, which has been defined as target figure at the beginning of the project.

ACTIONS TO AVOID FOOD WASTE

In the plants in Linz and St. Stefan, we sell so-called "Wurstsackerl" or "sausage bags" directly to customers at a heavily discounted price, which contain rejected products, excess production, product samples and production failures that are considered safe for consumption under food law. The plants in Bruck/Mur and Oberwaltersdorf regularly deliver products to charitable organisations such as “Badener Tafel”, “Vinzi-Rast” or “Gruft”. We are also a supplier of the app “Too Good to go”. A regular supply with fresh meat for the "Eggerheim" of Caritas in Klagenfurt was initiated in 2021.