FoodCap capsule meat – The FoodCap capsule has been proven in the meat supply chain.
A collaboration between two innovative Kiwi companies is paving the way for an alternative to costly and environmentally damaging packaging in the food industry. FoodCap’s reusable storage capsules are made out of a scientifically designed plastic resin and can also reduce heavy physical labour in food handling.
At a glance
- Auckland food logistics firm FoodCap spent five years developing a reusable capsule for handling meat, including inventing a suitable plastic resin for the job.
- The company is consulting to Walmart, as food companies around the world search for alternatives to environmentally unfriendly packaging.
- Now it’s expanding into other food ingredients and collaborating with Christchurch’s Baker Boys on a trial.
- The capsules are solving waste and manual labour problems for Baker Boys, as it strives to become a smart processor.
Science and technology provide packaging solution
What FoodCap thought would be an 18-month job to develop a new generation capsule for bulk meat handling, turned into a 5-year R&D project after it realised no suitable plastic resin existed. So the Auckland-based food handling systems specialist, supported by several technology partners, developed its own.
Now FoodCap is using that technology to create environmentally sustainable solutions for businesses striving to take waste out of their supply chain. The great potential for FoodCap is in the medium-sized food manufacturing sector, FoodCap Marketing Manager Vaughan Whyte says.
“The very large production companies have high levels of automation, but that’s the exception. The majority of companies are handling raw ingredients on a smaller batch basis, and as a result they have challenges around how to move the product efficiently and safely.”
A trial with New Zealand baked goods company, Baker Boys, and other experiments with food products that aren’t meat, have presented FoodCap with new challenges – for example, how to increase plastic viscosity so that products flow out leaving no residue, how to modify capsules to transfer hot ingredients, provide an anti-microbial barrier or store ingredients prone to odours or staining.
The trial with Christchurch-based Baker Boys is key to FoodCap’s plans to break into the American market, where supermarket groups and food processors are crying out for alternatives to undesirable packaging materials such as polystyrene.
Use in Baker Boys’ production line
For Baker Boys the trial is a part of its progress towards developing a smart factory, General Manager Dean Boston says. Despite being a significant contract manufacturer of baked goods for Australasian supermarket groups, many of the company’s processes are a larger version of baking at home, he says.
The biscuit crumbs it makes for slice bases are a classic example. The ingredient is made and stored in 10kg plastic bags for a few days until it’s required for a batch. The bags are then manually emptied into big mixers. “It’s an extremely physical job. Everything in the past has been based around the limit of what one human can handle,” Dean says.
The food capsule can store 100kg of biscuit crumbs and be machine-lifted into the mixer. It is then washed out and reused, with FoodCap estimating one capsule will last around a decade.
“Also, we go through hundreds of these plastic bags that have a three or four-day process life. It’s all about efficiency and waste reduction,” Dean says.
Global interest in sustainable supply chain packaging
The food capsule was originally designed for meat handling, and the company has been consulting extensively to giant US retailer Walmart in this area for the past two years. Now it’s looking at the capsule’s use in other types of food processing, so the trial at Baker Boys’ contract baking facility is important.
Vaughan says the processed food industry uses a significant amount of intermediate packaging.
“There is a revolution happening in the supermarket industry globally. With the rise of the conscious consumer companies are investing millions in finding ways to get rid of single use packaging. Their progressiveness and openness to being used as a case study is not common,” Vaughan says.
R&D a driver of innovation
New Zealand’s innovation agency, Callaghan Innovation, has supported FoodCap on the project as part of its mission to get more businesses solving problems with science and technology.
The organisation provided grants, connections into expertise, and mentoring around R&D – an area that was new to Vaughan. Katy Bluett, General Manager of its Food and Beverage Group, says there is significant potential to transform supply chains with smart sustainable packaging.
“The ability to reach out and work together on a disruptive technology is an important strength. Here Baker Boys had a specific problem and was willing to trial new solutions, pair them with FoodCap who were keen to find a suitable solution, and catalyse that with R&D as a driver of innovation,” says Ms Bluett.
