This is a first in France packaging of liquid food

This is a first in France packaging of liquid food. From the month of April, the mountain of the Carrefour brand milk consumers will buy the first bricks certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. Without even knowing it, if they are not enough observers to observe the FSC logo displayed their usual packaging which remains, on the other hand, the same. Invisible to the naked eye, the difference is nestled at the level of the essential raw material, cardboard, which weighs 75 of the composition of a Tetra Pak packaging. What is green "The presence of this certification guarantees to the purchaser of the product that it is derived from well-managed forests, complying with the highest level of social and environmental requirements," explains Stéphane Guéneau, President of Forest Stewardship Council France.

At constant prices

For the consumer, this labelling will affect the price. A strategic choice for Tetra Pak, who has decided to absorb the additional cost for more rapid deployment: "We we are given two years with Carrefour and WWF to print the notion of FSC certification in the consciousness of consumers," said Patrick de Noray, Director environment of Tetra Pak France. Indeed, until the complete substitution of all traditional brick, planned for 2012, the only French plant of the Swedish group, based in Dijon and FSC certified since November 24, to manage two separate supply chains for the cardboard. "To do this, the process of traceability that we have in place to obtain FSC certification must be irreproachable," adds Patrick de Noray.

Because for that a finished product might display this label, it must not only the origin of the raw material forest is certified, but also all companies processing and marketing speaking on any string up to the final consumer. For now, the factor limiting the deployment of the label FSC in France is the certified forest area: barely 16,800 hectares of a total of 15 million hectares.

An identical price is the sine qua non for the approximately 100 million litres of milk and fruit juice that the Carrefour group will put in the linear in all its outlets in France by end 2010. "The goal is to reach 134 million bricks certified in 2011 on the 216 million of Tetra Pak packages we sell every year under our brand." "Of course, the ultimate goal is to achieve a 100 substitution", explains Hervé Gomichon, Director quality of the Carrefour group. "This project allows us to decline this certification on a derivative of wood, cardboard. "It is an innovation, because this label is worn for the first time by a packaging of food products," he says.

At crossroads, this operation is part of a commitment to WWF initiated in 1998, to provide stone for the preservation of forests. "It is reflected already in our policy for the purchase of wood, even exotic products, as the furniture Garden, or in the papers used for our prospectus, which are certified to FSC and the weight is reduced", says Véronique speech-Buhot, responsible for the sustainable development of Carrefour.

The plastic is resistance

But the motivation of Tetra Pak France, committed too long with the WWF, beyond the sole intention of pushing to the extreme the revolving nature of its famous brick: "in recent years, we are making a genuine strategy of reconquest of the food packaging market, because, in France, plastic eroded share of market for 15 years," explains Anna Thrap OlsenDirector of business development of Tetra Pak France. A motivation supported by the results surprising life cycle analysis (LCA) of its packaging, given the group in 2008 at the law firm of expertise Bio Intelligence Service. "The result was a shock because everyone believed that the glass was the most virtuous for the environment," she says. For a litre of milk is food brick, with 83 g of CO2, has the lowest ecological footprint in terms of emissions of greenhouse gases, from the bottle (143 g) plastic and glass (345 g). Figures that a second independent assessment has confirmed.

This argument of weight, Tetra Pak has argued to convince the food brands to try or to return to the cardboard packaging. Crossroads is the first sign to the following in this ecological bet, Tetra Pak shall seduce quickly other actors in the great distribution achieved its goal: sell 2.7 billion food stamped bricks FSC on the French market by 2012.