2024: A Look Ahead

Following our 2023 roundup article it seems only right that we look ahead at what 2024 will bring.

We have a busy year planned as a business with lots of exciting events and projects to work towards and look forward to. These include a trip to the USA, Europe and we are exhibiting at the Farm Shop & Deli show in April. Read on to find out more…

Exhibiting at the Farm Shop & Deli show:

In 2024 we’re exhibiting at the Farm Shop and Deli show; the first time we’ve exhibited at a trade show for many years. Run by William Reed, the show runs alongside four other shows including the Food & Drink Expo and the National Convenience Show that make up the UK Food & Drinks Shows. Held in the NEC in Birmingham between the 29th of April and the 1st of May, we’ll be one of 12,000+ exhibitors showcasing their products, that include Artisan producers as well as leading brands of food and drinks, packaging suppliers and machine manufacturers.

We’ll have samples of our heat-shrink sleeves & capsules, plastic-free shrink sleeves and our caps & closures on offer with a demonstration area to showcase how our solutions can assist you in protecting your products. We will be encouraging live trials of our plastic-free shrink sleeves where visitors can watch them self-shrink in real time without heat or equipment!

With more than 25,000 visitors expected to attend, we’re going to be busy and look forward to meeting our customers old and new, pop along to stand M259 and say hello.

USA Trip:

Another exciting venture for us this year is a long overdue trip to the USA in March to visit our key distributors of our plastic-free shrink sleeves. We have not been able to visit these distributors since before the Covid-19 pandemic. The trip will take Emma (our Managing Director) and Seren (Marketing & Sales Executive) to Cleveland, Ohio and Chicago, Illinois and they are looking forward to building even stronger relationships in person with our distributors respected teams and aligning our business plans to further grow our plastic-free shrink sleeves (or celons as they are known in the USA).

Our distributors have already warned us we’ll need our thermals at the ready and prepare to brave the cold once we get there!

EU Trip:

Alongside visiting key distributors, we are also planning to visit our EU manufacturing partners for caps & closures during Q2 of this year. Emma and Olivia (Customer Account Manager- Closures) will be visiting suppliers in Slovenia, Portugal and Germany to name a few. Like our distributors in the US, we have not been able to visit our suppliers for some time and are keen to catch up, strengthen our bond and discover their plans for the future.

Our business goals:

Sustainability goals

In the past 12 months, we invested heavily in our factory including the installation of a brand-new solar panel system that is expected to provide approximately 40% of our electricity usage.

In 2024 we will be monitoring the system closely to understand how we can build on this system and increase our use of renewable energy.

We are looking to increase our use of RPET material by 20% as we assist customers in making the change from standard PET or PVC to this more environmentally friendly material, which runs the same as its PET counterpart.

As we do every year, we continue to strive for energy efficiency across our business, this year we will be making upgrades to our extrusion process for our plastic-free shrink sleeves and completing process improvements to reduce water usage.

New look E-commerce function

We are launching our new look e-commerce function in the first part of Q1 – currently you can purchase plastic-free shrink sleeves easily online and we are looking to expand this across our product range. This will also allow us to dramatically lower MOQs on many popular items to single boxes.

Expanding our Sales team

During the latter half of 2023 we created two new Business Development Executive (BDE) positions which are solely focused on creating and nurturing new customer relationships and expanding our reach. Key focus areas for us will be increasing our presence in the Caribbean and Europe.

Customer engagement

Last but by no means least, we want to engage more with our existing customer base in 2024, our customers are our number one priority and have a wealth of knowledge and experience that we hope to learn from.

A customer survey will be launched in January for us to gain key information on how we can better serve our customers and the challenges they face.

We will be attending more shows and events in 2024 than we have in the past 5 years and are keen to get out visiting customers to gain a better understanding of their processes and how we can help.

Industry news/events to look out for in 2024:

There are some big industry legislation and changes coming into effect this year that will affect packaging manufacturers and suppliers like us:

1. Tethered Caps Legislation

As you may have noticed when purchasing a bottle of Coca-Cola or fizzy drinks, the cap now remains attached to the bottle even when opened. As part of an EU directive issued by the European Parliament in 2021, it will be a legal requirement from July 2024 for plastic caps to remain attached to the bottle when you open them and for the duration of the bottle’s lifecycle on bottles up to the capacity of three litres. This legislation aims to increase recyclability of plastic bottles and to reduce littering. It is only law on plastic bottles with a plastic closure, metal and glass bottles for example are exempt for the legislation. For the cap to remain attached to the bottle, the cap must be tethered, therefore, we now offer both 1810 and 1811 in tethered and non-tethered format ready for the new legislation to come into effect in July. If you need advice on purchasing or switching to tethered caps in readiness for July, please contact on our sales email today- sales@viscose.co.uk and we’ll be happy to assist you.

2. Other changes to EU packaging regulations

2024 will be a decisive year for the whole packaging industry considering the EU’s proposed Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR). The plan was first outlined in November 2022 by the European Commission. In November 2023, the EU Parliament adopted its negotiating stance on the mandate in readiness for negotiations with the EU council on this matter this year. If passed and enacted the legislation will come into force in 2025, replacing the current EU framework on packaging and packaging waste that has been in place since 1994. The new legislation’s aims will be ‘to foster circularity and eco-friendly packaging, addressing the whole life cycle of packing, and by setting ambitious targets for companies and Member States (MS) to reduce waste and enhance recyclability’ (PwC Belgium)

PPWR’s measures are as follows (as outlined by PwC Belgium):

‘Packaging Design: Mandating that all packaging should be designed to be recyclable by 2030, with a transition to being effectively recycled at scale by 2035, and that the weight and volume of packaging be minimised;
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR): The modulation of financial contributions are based on recyclability and recycled plastic content to align with the new packaging design requirements;
Minimum Recycled Content in Plastic Packaging: Setting obligatory targets for recycled content recovered from post-consumer plastic waste by 1 January 2030, varying with the type of polymer and its usage;
Labelling: Label marking containing information on material composition to ease consumer sorting, its reusability and the share of recycled content;
Re-use and Refill: Setting sector and product specific mandatory targets for reusable packaging within a system for re-use or refill;
Deposit and Return Schemes (DRS): Setting up of deposit and return schemes for single use plastic and metal beverage bottles and containers;
Targets for MS: Establishing recycling and waste prevention targets, with particular emphasis on plastic packaging.’

Clearly, 2024 and 2025 are both likely to bring big but necessary changes to our industry. Like all packaging manufacturers, we’ll be keeping up to date with the news on this proposed legislation and working hard to prepare our business and our customers.

(PwC Belgium)

3. Change to the UK Plastic Packaging Tax (PPT)

If you are UK based, you may remember in April 2022, the UK Government brought in the new Plastic Packaging Tax. This tax aims to promote the Circular Economy and for manufacturers to re-use plastic, reducing the amount of virgin plastic from production. Exemption from the taxation means plastic packaging producers must use 30% recycled content plastic within their products. If a virgin plastic is used the rate of tax on the item was £210.82 per tonne of plastic. From April of this year, this tax rate is increasing from £210.82 per tonne to £217.85 per tonne. We currently offer 30% recycled content PET (or RPet as it is known), if you are looking to use more environmentally friendly plastic that is exempt from this taxation, get in touch with us today to find out more- sales@viscose.co.uk

4. Key events & tradeshows

As well as the UK Food & Drink Shows, there are a lot of exciting and relevant tradeshows to look forward to this year for us. We are in the process of booking a second exhibition slot at another show this year which we will share once confirmed.

Tradeshows to look out for this year:

Packaging Innovations- Birmingham, UK- February
International Food & Drink Event (IFE)- London, UK- March
Natural & Organic Products Expo- London, UK- April
Vitafoods Europe- Geneva, Switzerland- May
Environmental Packaging Live- London, UK- June
Imbibe Live- London, UK- July
London Packaging Week- London, UK- September
Speciality Fine Food Fair- London, UK- September
Responsible Packaging Expo- London, UK- October
The Pharmacy Show- Birmingham, UK- October
HCSA Conference- Manchester, UK- November
Sustainable Packaging Summit- venue TBC- November

We look forward to keeping you updated with all the Viscose news (be sure to check out the first 2024 edition of our bi-monthly newsletter released in February) and working with you in 2024 and beyond!

Sources:

Deutsche Recycling ‘PPWR: A closer look at the EU Packaging Regulation’
GOV.UK Policy Paper ‘Increase to Plastic Packaging Tax Rates from 1 April 2024’
News European Parliament ‘Packaging: new EU rules to reduce, reuse and recycle’
Packaging Europe ‘The packaging stories and trends to follow in 2024’
Plastik Media ‘Requirements for the production of tethered caps’
PwC Belgium ‘Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR): The EU Parliament adopts its position with view to the upcoming negotiations with the Council’