SPAR Austria, the country's leading grocery retail group, has taken a major step forward in reducing packaging waste for fresh meat through a project developed in partnership with Sealed Air, the U.S.-based global leader in protective packaging and food packaging solutions. At its TANN processing facility in Marchtrenk, the traditional tray-and-lidding-film packaging has been replaced with the CRYOVAC® MonoPP Flowpack solution, a flexible mono-material polypropylene (PP) packaging system.
The new packaging format is expected to reduce plastic consumption by 70%, saving approximately 14 tonnes of plastic annually. At the same time, eliminating the rigid tray results in a comparable reduction in CO₂ emissions, while also improving logistics efficiency by reducing the number of pallets required for storage and transportation.
The initiative has been introduced in preparation for the implementation of the European Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), which aims to reduce packaging material consumption and improve recyclability across the EU. The solution developed by Sealed Air delivers the same performance as conventional packaging, maintaining identical product shelf life while operating at a production speed of 44 packs per minute, without increasing production waste.
CRYOVAC® MonoPP Flowpack consists of a high-barrier mono-material PP film certified as recyclable by the Cyclos-HTP Institute. The packaging has been designed to be fully compatible with existing polypropylene recycling streams across European markets.
The results achieved will now be further evaluated to assess the potential rollout of the solution to additional TANN facilities and other SPAR production sites across Europe.
