From: Packaging News

Nestle is experimenting with degradation factors on chocolate bars in order to reduce its packaging.

The company has had 700 bars of chocolate placed side-by-side in a sealed room in a Swiss laboratory wrapped in transparent packaging. They are attached to sensors and exposed to light for 24 hours a day.

The science behind the study is based on some products being more sensitive than others to elements such as moisture, oxygen and light.

There’s a lack of precise data available about the extent to which these degradation factors affect sensitive products over the course of their designated shelf lives.

It’s thought that manufacturers tend to overestimate the level of protection a product’s packaging needs to provide and over protective packaging tends to be bulkier and more complicated thus causing greater environmental impact.

“There’s almost no such thing as a perfect barrier when it comes to packaging,” said Robert Witik, the scientist leading the study at the Nestlé Research Center in Lausanne.

“People may think no oxygen gets through plastic, for example, but different types of plastic are actually permeable to different degrees.

“One of our goals here is to identify the critical point at which the amount of oxygen a product consumes begins to have an impact on its taste and quality.”

Witik’s team painstakingly wrapped each of the 700 individual chocolate bars in different packaging materials with varying properties.

“We’ve divided the bars into groups and packed them under different storage conditions,” he explained.

“Some are wrapped in packaging with a high oxygen barrier, while others are wrapped in packaging with a low oxygen barrier.

“We’ve also adjusted the level of oxygen inside the packaging, so some bars have more oxygen between chocolate and wrapper than others.”

Throughout the experiment, the chocolate is continuously exposed to light at the same intensity.

“In normal circumstances the product would never be subjected to this much brightness,” said Witik. “This is an accelerated situation.”

A simultaneous study is also being conducted simulating the journey through the supply chain with the chocolate having more realistic exposure to light.

In the long-run, Nestle hope that the findings should enable the company to calculate how much oxygen chocolate will consume when packed in a given material under specific conditions.

“Packaging materials can be very complex, with many layers performing different functions,” continued Witik. “So choosing the right material is a very technical process.

“We want to help our engineers take a more data driven approach to what’s known as packaging ‘optimisation’ – better matching the performance of packaging with a product’s actual protection requirements.”

The work contributes to Nestlé’s public commitment to improve the environmental performance of its packaging, with a pledge to avoid the use of at least 100,000 tonnes by 2017, while guaranteeing the safety and quality of its products.

Nestlé’s head of packaging Bruce Funnell will also be speaking on the first day of the inaugural Packaging News Live conference 11-12 November at Olympia, London.