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food Marketing - Technology 1/2023

food Marketing & Technology is the international magazine for executives and specialists in the food industry.

Packaging Confectionery

Packaging Confectionery market: High Turnovers and Highly Competitive Most people enjoy a sweet tooth, but with the trend towards more sustainability, there is also an increase in demand for sweets with more eco-friendly packaging. This puts severe pressure on the confectionery industry to adopt packaging processes and materials which are gentle to natural resources. Many producers of packaging already are able to offer sustainable solutions for chocolate, biscuits, etc. The European confectionery industry is one of the most dynamic and largest sectors in terms of production and export. More than 12,000 companies produce 14.7 million tons of confectioneries each year, says the European association Caobisco. Worldwide, however, the USA are the biggest producers of confectionery with a predicted turnover of 264 billion Euro in 2023 and the largest absolute growth, according to Euromonitor International, over the next five years. Chocolate especially is what consumers prefer above all. In the European ranking by Chocosuisse in 2020, Switzerland led the per-capita consumption of chocolate with more than eleven kilograms per year, followed by Germany (9.2 kg), Estonia (8.3 kg) and Denmark (8.2 kg). Estonia even had the highest per-capita consumption of confectionery in 2022, according to Euromonitor – every inhabitant statistically ate a total of 13.6 kg. Prognostics say that this trend in the Baltic country will experience a large growth over the next five years. A current survey by the German online platform Statista shows: Women eat more sweets. In the year 2022, about 34 percent of women said they consume sweets or savory snacks every day. The number for men was 23 percent. In a different study, one quarter of the participants told the market investigators of POSpulse, that since the pandemic they have been consuming more sweets and snacks. Manufacturers source the main raw ingredients for confectionery and snack foods mostly from Germany or the EU, according to the German Federal association BDSI. This makes the confectionery industry not only an important partner for the German and European agriculture, short transport distances also mean that it contributes to saving resources. International trade is of course important for the confectionery industry, too. Using roughly 400,000 tons of cocoa, the most important raw ingredient for chocolate, German manufacturers of confectionery process 10 percent of the global annual crop. All in all, European manufacturers use about half of the world’s available cocoa, according to Caobisco. Currently, the industry like many others faces an existential crisis: Exploding costs for energy and raw materials, but also disruptions to delivery chains and the availability of raw materials disproportionately affect small and mid-size family businesses. For example, in autumn 2022, the cost increase for sugar was 100 percent, butter was 57 percent more expensive, and wheat 60 percent. “For our companies, the enormous pressure 30 food Marketing & Technology • February 2023

Packaging from rising costs leads to them questioning production sites or even their very existence. This is not only caused by the soaring cost of energy and raw materials in 2022, but also by negative pressure dependent on location, which in Germany has been higher than average for a long time. This includes expenditures on wages, taxes and the growing lack of qualified personnel”, says Dr. Carsten Bernoth, CEO of the German Federal association of German producers of confectionery (BDSI). ‘”For our producers, it is impossible to compensate for these considerably rising costs by saving or by proportionately raising sales prices.” In spite of the crises, confectionery is one of the segments of the food industry with the highest turnover; this segment achieves the fourth highest. It is therefore no surprise that the confectionery market is one of the most competitive within the German retail market. And the industry is facing new requirements. Especially the growing awareness of consumers regarding health and the environment is creating a new demand for sugarfree varieties and packages that are more environmentally friendly. For manufacturers of confectionery this also means they have to create their packaging processes to be more flexible and more efficient. There is a growing trend towards automated production and packaging processes, and their sweet delicacies more often come in a sustainable wrap. For example, we have the first chocolate bars that are not wrapped in an inner aluminum foil and are just packaged in cardboard – however, as this is in direct contact with food, it needs a coating. Confectionery producer Fazer now uses a light, dispersion coated cardboard from Metsä Board for its advent calendars. Switching to the new material has reduced the use of plastics by 1,200 kg each year compared to the previous PE coated cardboard, says the company. The advent calendar is now also fully able to be recycled, the light weight and the new material’s efficient use of resources also cut its carbon footprint by one quarter. “Virgin fiber cardboard offers the necessary safety for advent calenders, especially where chocolate and cardboard come into direct contact. Our dispersion coated cardboard also has neutral sensory properties, which means the taste of the chocolate is preserved for a long time”, says Olli Haaranoja, Sales Director at Metsä Board. Packaging chocolate at high speeds An output of 250 bars of chocolate per minute is the rate of a new wrapping machine, marketed by Sacmi as part of the brand Carle & Montanari. It also processes new eco-friendly packaging materials. The machine is the result of a new approach to machine construction at Sacmi Packaging & Chocolate, which goes beyond traditional mechanical concepts and makes it possible to package sensitive products at high speeds and with constantly high quality. The wrapping machine produces chocolate bars with an inner and outer wrapping, where the inner wrapping is sealed on three sides while the outer wrapping is made of precut cardboard or paper. Sensors attached to the system monitor the consumption, work hours food Marketing & Technology • February 2023 31

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