Coffee milk in the catering industry: reusable or portion packaging

07-May-2024

A new EU regulation* provides for a ban on small single-use plastic packaging for coffee creamers. These consist of a polystyrene base film and an aluminum lid, both of which are usually incinerated after use. An alternative in the hospitality industry, e.g. in bakeries, cafés or in the travel sector, are reusable solutions. Fraunhofer UMSICHT carried out a life cycle assessment for frischli Milchwerke to investigate the advantages and disadvantages of reusable solutions such as ceramic jugs or thermos flasks compared to individual packaging.

Avoiding non-recyclable packaging or replacing it with environmentally friendly packaging is an important goal on the way to a sustainable packaging industry. This will greatly reduce the CO2 footprint. However, the environmental impact of food loss, which can play a greater role in reusable systems due to hygiene regulations, must also be taken into account.

In the case of perishable products such as coffee milk, for example, these require that unused coffee milk must be disposed of once it has been offered to customers in a jug. Researchers at Fraunhofer UMSICHT therefore investigated the point at which additional CO2 emissions from food waste outweigh the additional CO2 emissions from small individual packaging. The reusable alternatives considered were 100 ml porcelain coffee pots and 0.5 liter stainless steel thermos flasks. For the reusable system, it was assumed that the milk is transported to the points of sale in 1 liter Tetra-Paks. For the comparison, the researchers also included innovative individual packaging designs: Here, the aluminum lid and polystyrene are replaced with polypropylene or recyclable recycled polystyrene. The result: reusable systems cause fewer greenhouse gases compared to all individual packaging, without taking food waste into account.

Food waste versus the CO2 footprint of individual packaging

In order to investigate the relevance of food waste, the researchers calculated the break-even point in their analysis, which shows the percentage of milk that has to be thrown away in the reusable alternatives until the carbon footprint corresponds to that of individual packaging. The range is between 3 and 27 percent - with the lowest value applying to the individual packaging variant made of polypropylene. "The result shows that, depending on the type of packaging, individual packaging can be the solution with the lowest carbon footprint, even with low food losses. Even if the environmental impact of packaging should be reduced as far as possible, the trade-off with food losses should always be taken into account. Environmentally friendly packaging designs, e.g. through optimized material selection, can be a climate-friendly alternative to reusable systems, depending on the application," Dr. Daniel Maga explains the results.

*Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on packaging and packaging waste (PPWR), amending Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 and Directive (EU) 2019/904 and repealing Directive 94/62/EC

Note: This article has been translated using a computer system without human intervention. LUMITOS offers these automatic translations to present a wider range of current news. Since this article has been translated with automatic translation, it is possible that it contains errors in vocabulary, syntax or grammar. The original article in German can be found here.

https://www.yumda.com/en/news/1183396/coffee-milk-in-the-catering-industry-reusable-or-portion-packaging.html