The Importance Of Packaging

Regulations for agrochemical approval vary across the globe, but packaging requirements are fairly standard.

Costs And Requirements

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“Labels are very particular,” says Fernando Garcia, senior product packaging engineer, crop protection, DuPont. “Every country has its own rules and regulations.” Creating correct labels is vital, as improper labeling can prevent a product from being accepted. “Some things have to be in certain colors and certain sizes, and on a certain part of the package,” explains Garcia.

Skimping on labels to save money can create problems. A company that doesn’t need a lot of material runs into higher costs when some regulaton colors or symbols must be printed. “It becomes very expensive,” says Garcia. Companies will try to get around the printing to save money, “and then, sometimes, they don’t accept the labels,” he says. Manufacturers do get a break on container requirements: “Country regulations differ mostly on the labeling,” says Garcia. “On the packaging, they pretty much take what you offer.”

However, packaging is not an area where a company wants to cut costs, as safety is paramount. “Most of the product in the chemical business for farms and agriculture is qualified as hazardous or dangerous,” Garcia says. “So the importance in this industry is in an incident if you have problems with leakages. So the important thing is the materials, because of the uses.”

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The uses may be the same worldwide, but the distribution system in different countries can raise or lower packaging costs. For example, in the US, there are mostly big distributors. “But if you go to little markets, people buy the products in lesser quantities, so the package ends up on the shelf,” Garcia says.

Some products can be packaged in bulk for export and repackaged at the retail level, saving some money, says Garcia. “But product that is more generic becomes more of a problem because every time you handle it you add cost. It’s expensive to do that. So you do the finished package in situ, where they manufacture.”

So how much of a company’s budget should go toward packaging? According to Carlton Wong, director of sales and marketing and global strategy manager, Aicello North America: “Packaging costs are a variable cost; that’s the percentage that you have to measure. The normal thing is to look at the comparative price, and the metric will be what the cost of the package is per kilogram of product packaging. It becomes relative; a percentage of a total cost of sales, and that depends on how you sell the product. If you sell it in hundred grams, the package is a lot more expensive per kilo than if you sell it in five or 10 kilos.”

While saving money on packaging can be difficult, investing in good product packaging will pay off in several ways. “For one thing,” Garcia says, “when it’s in the market and competing with other things, they want a package that displays well. Secondly, the package has to be durable and impervious to wear. It becomes an issue if you have leakage — that is a problem; that is dangerous. If you drop it and it breaks, then that becomes a big problem.”

Saving Through Recycling

Some costs can be recouped through a good recycling program. “You would like to always reuse,” says Garcia. Companies that package in-house can control some costs. “Reuse from the source — we use less paper, we use less plastic,” says Garcia. “The best thing is returnable-reusable because you eliminate the package. You have distribution where a container comes back and then it’s cleaned and refilled and goes back again.”

Chemical manufacturers that don’t have the luxury of producing and reusing their own packaging, or can’t work with the geography and transportation required, may still get compensation through regional or national recycling programs. Brazil, for example, has an excellent recycling program where end-users simply return empty containers to a central location. “Depending on the tonnage of material that they recover, the company receives a fee back on a per-kilo basis,” explains Garcia.

The Future Of Packaging

As technology improves, agrochemical packagers must look at all of these factors — reducing costs, improving safety, and working toward sustainability. As technology improves, containers and packaging can become safer for both the user and the environment. Some such science already exists. “I would push more for the use of water soluble film,” says Garcia. “That itself protects the package; the package doesn’t become contaminated, and the product becomes the film and the product itself.”

PVA film is used with water soluble packaging, “typically for powders or granules where it’s intended to be a unit dose,” says Wong. “It’s intended to improve safety, because most accidents occur during the filling stage. So, you would package the powder, throw it into the spray tank, which would dissolve it, releasing the chemical, so there’s no user contact.”

As EPA and other government regulations change, packaging will have to meet new requirements. DuPont is trying to stay on top of these changes, says Garcia. “We are trying to implement material that is biodegradable that disappears in 90 days, or 300 days. That’s a trend that will be very important from now on. Some products need protection in the form of metallized or aluminized containers for water vapor transmission and things like that. There are efforts to get biodegradable film made of corn or soy metallized for protection of the product, and the whole thing would be biodegradable.

“Another trend that is coming up is nano-material protection,” he continues, “which is made of a nanoparticles cover that would make the film with some protection for shelf life, like two or three years or so, which is very comparable to aluminum, even though it may not have the same characteristics. And that may come within the next two or three years.”

As packaging costs are based on quantities, costs of these new types of containers will probably be higher when they are first introduced. However, as soon as “everyone would start using it and there is more demand, then economies of scale,” says Garcia. “It certainly helps a lot more with products that command a higher price, like insecticides.”

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