Faerch establishes closed loop for its PET food packaging with EREMA

As a plastic packaging manufacturer and EREMA's customer in Denmark, Faerch is the first company in the world to successfully integrate the recycling of european post-consumer PET household pots, tubs and tray packaging into its own production process.

Faerch is recognized as a leading manufacturer of food packaging, largely made from PET thermoforming film. It produces trays for ready meals, fresh meat, takeaway meals and packaging for dairy products a several of its locations in Europe. They supply well-known food producers and trading companies around the world.

The packaging must meet the highest quality standards for direct contact with food, and must meet special functional criteria, such as for transporting liquid food and when food is frozen or heated up in it.

At Faerch's own recycling plant "4PET", PET bales obtained from collection and sorting companies throughout Europe are sorted, washed and recycled.

The trays Faerch produces are fully recyclable and, depending on the PET type (CPET, MAPET or APET), are made of up to 100% recycled post-consumer PET (rPET). That is why Faerch is considered a pioneer in tray-to-tray recycling, also due to its cooperation with EREMA.

At Faerch's own recycling plant "4PET" in the Netherlands, PET bales obtained from collection and sorting companies throughout Europe are sorted, washed and recycled. Both post-consumer rPET flakes and pellets are supplied to packaging manufacturers and reused in the company's own production.

"This currently makes us the only integrated recycler in the world capable of recycling used household PET packaging on an industrial scale and turning them back into new trays," explained Thomas Bak Thellesen, Senior Director Group Sustainability & External Affairs.

Faerch uses EREMA's VACUREMA technology to produce 100% rPET trays.

He backs up this statement with some figures: Trays from all over Europe are recycled to make 1.2 billion PCR PET trays per year. The aim is to quadruple the recycling capacity within the coming years. "Without any compromises in terms of food contact compliance and functional properties," Bak Thellesen emphasized.

To get the PET waste it needs, Faerch offers its own buyback models to customers who are able to collect the packaging again after use, such as airlines and catering companies.

The company has been using the VACUREMA system with SafeFlake technology from EREMA for the recycling process for the trays since 2018.

The special feature of this set-up is that decontamination, drying and IV treatment already take place on the flake in the vacuum reactor. Only then is the material fed into the extruder.

Both post-consumer rPET flakes and pellets are supplied to packaging manufacturers and reused in Faerch's own production.

This prevents hydrolytic and oxidative degradation of the melt in the extruder, which in turn is a prerequisite for highly clean, food contact compliant rPET trays with the best IV and color values.

The quality of the rPET pellets remains consistently high even if the parameters of the input material - such as moisture, mixture or bulk density - vary.

In addition to these quality aspects, the financial arguments also clearly speak in favor of this recycling process. This is because both the total costs of acquisition and use (total costs of ownership) and the energy consumption are comparatively low.

"The specific overall energy consumption of a VACUREMA Prime system is only 0.295kWh/kg. This is one of the best energy efficiency values compared to conventional PET processing lines on the market," added Christoph Wöss, Business Development Manager at EREMA Group GmbH.