Berry solution provides 19% weight reduction for Milchwerke Schwaben dairy containers

GERMANY – Berry Superfos has achieved a significant weight reduction for its 1kg UniPack container supplied to leading German dairy producer Milchwerke Schwaben, to help meet the customer’s sustainability objectives.

Due to a reduced headspace and improved indexation in the new containers, each pallet can now carry 594 kg worth of packaging in comparison to the previous 540kg. These changes are not thought to have impacted the overall effectiveness of the tubs.

The redesign follows an initial reduction from the original 50g pack to 43g and retains the in-mold labeling decoration from previous designs for brand customization.

“We wanted a weight reduction and we achieved almost 19% which we are very satisfied with,” explained Jakob Ramm, managing director at Milchwerke Schwaben.

“The 1kg container now weighs 35g as opposed to 43g before. But happily, we got even more than that from the redesign project with Berry Superfos because, thanks to alterations in the design, we can now load more containers onto each pallet.

“In addition, after modifying our filling line slightly to fit the redesigned container, we have fewer handling costs, and our filling line simply runs much better now.”

Ramm further noted: “To achieve the lower weight, Berry Superfos made several small adjustments. They reduced the headspace, made the skirt shorter and the handles thinner, and changed the tamper evidence function.

“In this way, we were able to meet the demand from retailers and consumers to reduce the amount of packaging material without compromising the container’s great consumer appeal.”

The 1kg round UniPak container for Milchwerke Schwaben is just one example from the range of shapes and sizes that is probably the most extensive on the European market.

The redesigned container maintains its eye-catching In-Mold Labelling (IML) decoration to make consumers notice the product on supermarket shelves.

The Weideglück brand won an award from the In-mold Labelling Association last year for the decoration on the yoghurt container, which features a smart label with an embedded code that the eye cannot detect.

This printed Digimarc code allows consumers to interact with the product and link to a website via a mobile app to check the origins of the product. It also enables retailers to reduce time at checkout.

The use of the Digimarc matches the Weideglück brand perfectly since the products contain only natural ingredients and are branded under the slogan “Weideglück. Da Weiss ich, was drin ist” which translates to “Weideglück. Then I know what’s in it.”
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