The pet care division of a global brand got in touch to see if we could assist with their packaging operations. They wanted to see if there was any way of helping them reduce packaging costs, and with sustainability in mind, to reduce their plastic packaging usage. Working together, Lindum helped the company to achieve…
The challenge faced by the petcare brand was the rising costs of packaging, combined with the corporate responsibility goal to look at the amount of plastic being used across it’s operations. Looking specifically at pallet wrap, the challenge posed was to reduce costs whilst at the same time reducing the amount of plastic that they use within their pallet wrapping operations. Not knowing where to start in order to begin to address these challenges, the petcare brand got in touch with the team at Lindum to help achieve their goals.
The first step for Lindum was to visit their production site in the north of England, and conducted a thorough and informative free transit packaging audit in order to find any areas across packaging operations for improvements. On average, we save our clients 27% in packaging costs and 53% in plastic reduction through our audits, so we were confident we could help with their goals.
Initial results from our audit suggested that improvements could be made by looking at the right stretch film for the application. A common problem we see time and again, and what was happening at the production site, is that the most efficient stretch film isn’t being used.
The site was using a 23mu ‘heavy’ film which didn’t have the right stretch properties for wrapping the pet care products required. Furthermore, the machine being used to apply the 23mu film was not set properly, so ultimately more product – and plastic – was being used than required.
Following an initial audit, the Lindum team suggested making the switch over to a Carestretch 15mu machine film. The properties of our pre-stretched Carestretch machine film meant that not only is performance excellent, but less is needed for each pallet wrapped. Therefore with the company’s goals taken into consideration, we thought this film would suit the site specific operations. Switching to the pre-stretched machine film also meant that the pallet’s holding force was improved and overall pallet stability was increased too.
Switching to a more efficient stretch film for the petcare brand brought with it a whole host of benefits. By switching to a Carestretch machine film, they managed to reduce the amount of plastic used in their pallet wrapping operations by 32%. Using a more efficient stretch film means that less plastic was required per pallet – reducing plastic and also using less wrap means a cost saving too. The switch over to a Carestretch film resulted in a cost saving of 11% – meeting both the challenges the company sought to resolve when contacting Lindum.
Incidental benefits by switching film, and adjusting machine settings for the new film meant that the load holding force was greatly improved and pallets were being sent into the supply chain much more stable than before. Increased pallet stability was achieved, resulting in the petcare company’s newly wrapped pallets passing a 0.5g stability test, on our EUMOS approved test lab.
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