Italian fruit and vegetable packaging specialist Sorma has introduced Sormapeel, a lightweight and fully-recyclable packaging for potatoes and other produce. The product was announced this year, at fresh-produce trade show Fruit Logistica in Berlin.

PotatoBusiness.com reached out to the packaging experts for a more in-depth look at their innovation, as well as a broader view of the packaging market in general.

“Sormapeel is the new packaging line that can be applied to the entire range of Sorma fruit and vegetable packaging machinery. Therefore, its adoption does not imply any new investments to modify or change existing machines. Its second strong point is its performance: the new solution maintains all the content-visibility, breathability, resistance, speed and strength characteristics found on all the other Sorma packaging lines,” said Mario Mercadini, Large Scale manager of Sorma Group.

The innovative feature is the introduction of a “peel-off” strip of paper, which is easily removable by consumers, making the separate recycling of the plastic and paper quick and trouble-free. Moreover, the packaging contains, on average, 50% less plastic than the conventional equivalent, and this material is completely recyclable: consisting entirely of PE (high-density polyethylene) or PP (polypropylene), it can be recycled with even greater speed and ease.

“This innovation is also economical, compared to other solutions, which are much more expensive, and thanks to the reduction in plastic content and its partial replacement with paper, the new line is extremely lightweight,” Mercadini told PotatoBusiness.com.

The packaging specialists highlighted that plastic nowadays is considered more of an enemy instead of an ally, because of the effect it has on the environment.

“Our responsibility is not just to develop packaging with a low environmental impact, offering lighter packs and integrating other materials, but also to find concrete, practical and economical solutions: that is, easily disposable for consumers, convenient for all product lines, with the same robust and durable characteristics to avoid food waste,” Mercadini explained.

Sormapeel was born out of cooperation between machine and packaging producers Sorma and Netpack, that belong to Sorma Group. By combining their knowledge and research efforts, they were able to reduce plastic content by 58% through the addition of removable, FSC-approved paper. The new material works without any adjustments to the packaging machine and without having an impact on productivity, cost, or the breathability and shelf-life of the product, according to Mercadini.