IDM | Interview
Trendy products out of a bottle
IDM interview with Thomas Redeker, KHS Dairy Team
KHS has adopted a comprehensive approach so that they can offer their customers
not only effective, resource-saving and operator-friendly machines but also extra service
and training opportunities (photo: KHS)
22 · 4-5 2017 | international-dairy.com
Ever more product innovations in the
area of milk drinks and drinking yogurts
are introduced to the market in plastic
bottles. IDM asked Thomas Redeker,
Sales Director Dairy Europe KHS, about the
background of this development and about
sustainability of plastic as packaging material.
IDM: Do you see a trend towards milk products
being increasingly packaged in plastic
bottles? Is this trend also evident in Germany?
Redeker: At the moment we’re seeing a
worldwide trend towards milk products in
plastic bottles. In Europe the Euromonitor International
market research company forecasts
a growth of 20% from 2014 to 2019
– in yogurt drinks in Germany, for example.
Milk products, which are launched to market
as being healthy and trendy, are already
increasingly being packaged in the safe and
practical plastic bottle.
IDM: How high is the sustainability factor
when we think of PET or other oil-based
packaging materials? The manufacturers of
cardboard packaging have already long documented
a certain superiority regarding their
packaging systems ...
Redeker: In the meantime the superiority of
cardboard packaging you speak of is treated
with greater distinction. Cardboard packaging
now only consists of 50% to a maximum
of 70% of cardboard; the rest of the packaging
is made of plastic and aluminum. The
other packaging components in the composite
cardboard packaging are also not recycled
but burned. Deutsche Umwelthilfe, a
German environmental relief association, estimates
that cardboard recycling quotas only
amount to 36%.