TECH TRENDS
Though the UK recycles over 65% of its packaging, millions of tonnes of discarded waste still disappears into landfill each year"
42 TECHNOLOGY “Three or four years ago, if you went to a food and beverage conference everyone was talking about sugars,” says Adrian Swinburne of 42 Technology. “But for the last couple of years the hot topic has been sustainability.” This is of course no surprise; the sustainability issue has hit every area of business squarely in the face in recent years, and is a particularly big headache for the food industry, which carries a potentially troublesome burden – packaging. Though the UK recycles over 65% of its packaging, millions of tonnes of discarded waste still disappears into landfill each year. Adrian, who looks after the consumer sector at design and engineering consultancy 42 Technology, says companies are increasingly looking for novel ways to mitigate their packaging problem. “Sustainability is a major theme across all of 42 Technology’s consumer sector clients, particularly sustainability of packaging,” Adrian says. “We’re already working with clients on more sustainable packaging solutions, either through using different materials or switching from mixed to single material packaging. Often it’s just about making things simpler for recycling purposes. If you have got to take lots of bits out and wash them out before they can be recycled, that’s a barrier for the consumer and a challenge for producers. We’re helping our clients to address that challenge. “We’re seeing more and more clients looking at the replacement of anything made of moulded plastic with recyclable materials,” he continues. “Printed, flexible electronics are also becoming more commonly available and are getting towards
the kind of cost points that could enable smart packaging. This could have implications on ease of recycling in both a positive and negative way.” But sustainability comes in other forms too, and Adrian believes there’s also a shift happening in manufacturing processes. “Process innovation to improve manufacturing is very important to a lot of our clients in the consumer sector, because they all want to increase productivity,” he says. “New equipment comes with high capital cost, and companies are looking at how far they can push their existing assets rather than invest in new equipment, whether that is by increasing throughput for current products or by unlocking latent functionality to enable new products. “It’s my belief that 42 Technology does more in this area of manufacturing processes than many of the other consultancies. It’s not the
most glamorous part of tech, but it’s very important.” Founded in 1998 and originally focused on the design of power tools, 42 has since expanded to cover other sectors including energy and transport, as well as consumer goods. Adrian says that the company has become an expert in the art of the possible. “We’re a practical engineering company, and while we do really creative blue-sky innovation work, when we talk to customers the conversation very quickly gets grounded in what is possible, how it will work in practice, and what can be achieved at an acceptable manufacturing cost,” he says. “Businesses want to know how new ideas can be translated into real world solutions, and being practical in our approach tends to resonate with our clients.” 42technology.com
ABOVE Adrian Swinburne, Head of Consumer at 42 Technology
ISSUE 05 12
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