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Packaging touches everyone every day.
This is the Everything Packaging podcast with David Holliday.
What's up with packaging? Find out with David Holliday. What is up with packaging? Hello there. My name is David, and welcome to this latest edition of What's Up With Packaging, where I take a look at some of the packaging news stories that have gotten my attention in the last week or so.
David:Starting off this week with breakfast. The best meal of the day many people would say. My personal favorite is a Full English fried breakfast. Doesn't get any better than that. The true breakfast of champions.
David:But interestingly, the European Council has just produced some recommendations for new regulations for managing breakfast products such as honey, orange juice, fruit juice and some dairy items. The idea is to make the honey. Contents management of honey where apparently cheap sugar is often substituted for actual honey in the recipes. Also, minimum fruit quantities in jams and spreads to make sure that consumers are getting a a fair deal. I think this is, a really good idea.
David:And to be honest, I had no idea that this kind of regulation wasn't in place already. It seems a natural thing to do. Good old breakfast, that's what I say. Let's talk for a second about best before dates and other types of date coding. This is often a confusing and somewhat controversial topic and it's said that because people really don't understand the date coding and the dates that are on packaged food products, that a lot of food is thrown out when it is actually perfectly okay to eat.
David:What's the solution for this? Well, researchers at McMaster University in Canada come up with some possible alternatives for date coding. One of them includes smart packaging. Plastic films that can somehow detect the quality level of the food that they are wrapped with and send a warning to the consumer. They are also using a handheld device that can measure the food quality of items in the retail store, helping retailers not sell products that may have gotten past their best.
David:There's also a spray of some sort that's allegedly going to kill bacteria and ensure that all of the food products stay in good shape for a much longer time. This program apparently has been going on for a few years, but it hasn't made a huge amount of progress in the food processing industry, largely I think because of the cost and food companies don't want to incur additional packaging costs which they will obviously have no problem passing on to us, the customers. And finally for this week, my favorite butter, Kerrygold, pure Irish butter. I do believe that their product is superior because, as they say, it comes from happy Irish cows that are better looked looked after than cows in other parts of the world. But that's not the essence of the story today.
David:Some time ago, Kerigold had to recall their products in New York state because the packaging contained PFAS which, contravened with New York state rules. Sometime after that, a lady actually sued the manufacturer on the basis that, because the PFAS in the packaging could migrate into the butter, it is no longer pure Irish butter as stated on the packaging and the company is liable for misleading advertising and poor package information. When this went to court, the company obviously wanted to get out of this as much as they can and they tried to get the case dismissed. One of the things they brought to the table is people misreading the pure Irish butter tagline. We shouldn't be reading it thinking it's pure butter from Ireland.
David:The company actually stated that it means it's purely Irish butter and the tagline doesn't imply anything about the purity of the product itself. The judge in the case apparently wasn't impressed and is allowing the case to go on to the next stage. It's I'm sure going to take a while to get through the legal system, but it will be very interesting to see just how this works out in the end. Very interesting stuff. And that's it.
David:A short and sweet. What's up in packaging for this week? Watch out for another one in the next week or so and hopefully there'll be some more interesting packaging stories. In the meantime, please take care and have a great week. Thank you.