The Ultimate Guide to: Sustainable Supply

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH 9 specialityfoodmagazine.com For Alex Jackson, sales and marketing director at Icertech, packaging plays a key, vital role in sustainable supply chains system “ Packaging goes far beyond material choice ” Packaging is often one of the most visible indicators of a company’s sustainability commitments. On the surface, we tend to focus on what packaging is made from – is it paper or plastic? In reality, packaging’s role within a sustainable supply chain goes far beyond material choice. In a truly sustainable supply chain, packaging is designed not just to move products from A to B, but to minimise waste, reduce emissions, and prevent product damage, ultimately lowering the number of returns and the associated environmental impact. When done well, packaging becomes a key enabler of efficiency and circularity, supporting both environmental goals and commercial performance. Both businesses and consumers recognise the value of sustainable packaging. In fact, consumers are often among the strongest drivers of change, challenging brands to improve their environmental performance. For businesses, however, there are barriers that aren’t always visible to the end user, from cost pressures and supply chain complexity to the difficulty of finding solutions that are both truly sustainable and capable of meeting performance and affordability requirements. Francisco Gaffney, CEO and chairman of Trinity SES, shares tips on how to integrate sustainable packaging into a business’s day-to-day operations Three moves that pay off fast: 1 Make packaging recipes part of resource management and flow them through orders 2 Publish live role-specific dashboards so teams see how their work serves strategy 3 Run a shadow-IT sweep, then consolidate into integrated tools to restore a single source of truth Done this way, sustainability reporting stops being a tax on time and becomes proof of a better-run supply chain. 6% 58% AVOID PRODUCTS IN PLASTIC PACKAGING WHICH RECYCLE FOOD PACKAGING WHICH HOW UK CONSUMERS APPROACH PLASTIC PACKAGING