Member Article

South America calls for eco-friendly Roberts Mart

The Leeds-based Roberts Mart and Co, one of the UK’s leading independent manufacturers and suppliers of flexible packaging, has created an award-winning compostable barrier sachet for coffee capsules.

The sustainable product, developed in conjunction with German plastics manufacturer BASF, has already attracted serious inquiries from South America. .

The launch of the new sachet comes in the wake of a tremendously successful 12 months for Roberts Mart with a booming order book and turnover set to reach a record-breaking £36 million by the end of the year.

The sachet made of BASF’s certified compostable biopolymer ecovio® won the Product Innovation prize at the prestigious Sinal Exhibition in France. The tenth edition of this international exhibition was dedicated to agro-resources in the bio-economy and featured non-food applications.

Simon Roberts, Commercial Director at Roberts Mart, commented: “We are absolutely delighted with the reaction to our new sachet. Not only has it won an award at an internationally-renowned exhibition, reflecting our commitment to creating chemistry for a sustainable future, but it is also attracting serious interest in Europe and South America.

“We are currently in discussions with a Chilean company and are hopeful of breaking into the flourishing South American coffee packaging market.”

He explained: “We worked closely with BASF to develop a bag made from a multi-layer film that provides oxygen, aroma, and moisture barrier, and – crucially - is compostable.

“This innovative sachet preserves the coffee aroma contained in the coffee capsules and reduces waste by prolonging the shelf life of the coffee capsules. As such, it was a complete solution containing bio-sourced and compostable capsules, thereby reducing waste and the carbon footprint.

“This is the first in a range of new compostable structures that we are developing and we are excited about working with BASF to deliver sustainable packaging solutions, fulfilling our main objectives of providing innovative solutions by combining competitiveness, social responsibility and respect for the environment,” said Mr Roberts.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Robert Beaumont .