Amcor PLC on August 29, the Asia Pacific R & D center of Amcor PLC, the world's leading consumer product packaging company, was officially established. The center, located in Jiangyin, Jiangsu Province, China, is the largest innovation center of AMCO group in the world except North America.
In the first phase of the project, AMCO will invest more than 10 million US dollars to build a R & D center with an area of more than 3000 square meters. 50 R & D personnel will be accommodated in the first phase, and 100 will be accommodated in the future. The completion of the center in China will make the products face Chinese consumers and customers, commit to the development of sustainable and innovative packaging products, and promote the industrial upgrading of the packaging industry and the low-carbon transformation of social life.
"Thanks to China's excellent business environment, AMCO's business has grown rapidly in China, and it has not stopped growing even during the epidemic. Therefore, AMCO is willing to continue to expand its market in China, expand its innovative R & D layout, and adhere to the commitment of 'in China, for China'." She Xin, President of AMCO Greater China, said at the opening ceremony of the center.
As the world's largest consumer goods packaging enterprise, AMCO group, founded in 1860 and headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, mainly engages in various soft plastic and hard plastic packaging, which can be applied to food, beverage, pharmaceutical, medical devices, home and personal care and other fields.
Since the establishment of Hong Kong AMCO in 1987, it has entered China. Over the past 30 years, it has set up 13 production bases in China, with 4000 employees and a total investment of more than 3 billion yuan. The company has the largest pharmaceutical flexible packaging factory in Jiangyin and the largest medical device flexible packaging factory in Suzhou. At present, it produces about 100 billion packages in China every year, and about 200-300 million AMCO packages are used in the Chinese market every day.
Products should keep up with "China's speed"
On the day of the opening ceremony, Lu Qiang, vice president of R & D in Asia Pacific region of AMCO group, said in an interview with reporters that in the future, AMCO's Asia Pacific R & D center will accelerate the introduction of advanced technologies from other R & D centers in the world into China and land in China. On the other hand, the Asia Pacific R & D center will also directly face the needs of customers and market consumers in China and provide one-stop services for all innovative needs of customers.
According to Lu Qiang, the Asia Pacific R & D center will set up a customer experience center, a packaging creativity laboratory, a packaging application laboratory, and a pilot line. Customers can turn packaging concepts into physical objects through AMCO's catalyst TM "from concept to product" full chain service.
Specifically, the customer experience center gathers innovative packaging products from all over the world, covering diverse scenarios of consumers' daily lives. Customers can get the most cutting-edge packaging information, ideas and innovation inspiration in the world from here. The packaging creativity laboratory combines materials science with industry knowledge and consumer insight, and can quickly create simulated packaging prototypes, greatly shortening the customer's product development and evaluation cycle.
The packaging application laboratory has high-speed vertical and horizontal packaging, ISTA packaging and transportation, high-temperature cooking, thermoforming product packaging and other production and testing capabilities, which can quickly and effectively evaluate various problems that may be encountered in the production process. In addition, the center has also introduced a number of world-class packaging production lines, covering daily chemicals, snacks, chocolate, pet food, medical health, meat and dairy products and other packaging applications, thus effectively improving the efficiency of product development.
Lu Qiang told reporters that "compared with other packaging markets in the world, China's market is still growing, the market reaction speed is faster, and the product requirements of various regions are also different, which is also the challenge faced by AMCO Asia Pacific R & D center."
According to the data of China Packaging Federation, in 2021, enterprises above Designated Size in China's packaging industry accumulated an operating income of 1204.181 billion yuan, an increase of 16.39% year-on-year, and an increase of 17.56 percentage points year-on-year; The total accumulated profit of Enterprises above designated size was 71.056 billion yuan, an increase of 13.52% year-on-year. The data of Liding consulting company in China shows that China has become the second largest packaging country in the world, and the market size of the packaging industry exceeds trillion yuan.
To this end, AMCO Asia Pacific R & D center will fully catch up with "China's speed." According to Lu Qiang, AMCO Asia Pacific R & D center is cooperating with Xibei and Haidilao, well-known enterprises in the domestic catering industry, to build the packaging of prefabricated dishes in the central kitchen for the prefabricated dishes that are hot in the Chinese consumer market recently. In addition, AMCO has also developed microwave automatic exhaust packaging to prevent expansion and explosion of convenience food due to excessive air pressure during microwave heating, while keeping humid air in the packaging as much as possible to maintain the flavor of food.
Help packaging industry to be low-carbon and recyclable
Today, China has entered the era of electronic consumption. Every day, all kinds of packaging, especially express packaging, surround the city and people living in the city like a sea.
According to the statistics of the State Post Office, China's express delivery industry produces more than 9 million tons of paper waste and about 1.8 million tons of plastic waste every year, which shows a rapid growth trend. In mega cities, the increase of express packaging garbage has accounted for 93% of the increase of domestic garbage, and the increase is not decreasing. However, another data shows that in 2021, the overall recovery rate of packaging waste in China is less than 20%, and the actual recovery rate of tape and plastic in express waste is less than 10%.
At present, what difficulties still exist in the recycling of waste packaging materials in China? She Xin, President of AMCO Greater China, said in response to the reporter's question, "first of all, the packaging itself needs to be recyclable. For example, the packaging should preferably be a single material. In this regard, there is still a long way to go in the design and material formulation of domestic packaging products."
Taking plastic packaging as an example, the recyclable plastic packaging needs to use pure polyolefin structural materials, which are mainly composed of PE (polyethylene) and PP (polypropylene), and can't add pet (polyethylene terephthalate), PVC (polyvinyl chloride), PVDC (polyvinylidene chloride), etc.
"In the circulation sector, packaging recycling needs the participation of the government and the education of consumers. Finally, it also needs more understanding and support from the society." She Xin said.
It is understood that in 2020, eight departments, including the national development and Reform Commission and the national post office, issued the opinions on accelerating the green transformation of express packaging. The opinions proposed that by 2025, China's express packaging field will comprehensively establish a legal, standard and policy system compatible with the green concept, and form a long-term governance mechanism throughout the whole chain of express packaging production, use, recycling and disposal; E-commerce express basically realized no secondary packaging, and the application scale of recyclable express packaging reached 10 million.
AMCO is also contributing to the green transformation of packaging in Chinese society.
Since 2020, AMCO has cooperated with Shanghai Shishang recycling company to create the first domestic closed-loop recycling plan for soft plastic packaging. In the project, consumers applied for AMCO pick-up bags through mobile phone applet, and then the pick-up recycling company collected them on-site and sent them to the warehouse for sorting. After that, the processing manufacturer Lin Pai environmental protection technology (Shanghai) Company crushed and re granulated the waste soft plastic powder through the patented technology of "PCC wood plastic extrusion" to make plates, wall railings, plastic garbage cans and outdoor floors, and then put them into the market again. At present, this applet has 100000 active users in Shanghai.
In addition, AMCO is also cooperating with jd.com, dingdong, HEMA and other e-commerce companies to further promote the use of express recyclable packaging. AMCO is also working with relevant projects of jd.com to formulate environmental protection packaging standards for Chinese enterprises.
"The balance between functionality and sustainability is AMCO's product philosophy." She Xin said. To this end, in 2018, AMCO group made a commitment to make all packaging products recyclable or reusable by 2025. At present, 74% of its packaging products in the world are recyclable, and the proportion of products in China has reached 70%. She Xin frankly said, "how to complete the remaining 30% in the next three years is also a major challenge for the company."
