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March 4 2008, 08:54

A beginning of the end of packing industry?

"Fruit-Inform" weekly informs, the packing of fruits and vegetables has been one of the most intensively discussed topics in fruit & vegetable business of many EU countries in the recent years. This topic is discussed in the context of new methods of fruit & vegetable packing in Ukraine and Russia; to the contrary, the EU countries appeal to significantly decrease the percentage of the products sold in packs. This especially concerns fruits and vegetables. The packs affect the environment - this is the main reason why they have got in wrong with Europeans. That's why the Governments of European countries appeal to the retail trade to sell fresh unpacked fruits and vegetables. Also, they ask supermarkets to fully give up distributing free-of-charge plastic bags, which are one of the main contaminators of the environment. As of today, the main objective of the Europeans is to replace disposable packs by the reusable packs. The majority of European chains have already almost fully given up using corrugated cardboard boxes - they were replaced by high strength plastic containers which may be used many times. Now the objective is to get the consumers be interested to use various reusable bags for purchases instead of disposable bags. At the same time, there is a suggestion to introduce special fines or taxes for the supermarket chains who sell disposable packs (for each sold pack). We'd like to point out that the packs are the items of income for many Ukrainian supermarket chains, that's why just some of them offer the packs for free. The packs have an advertisement of the chain, and also they are one of the most cost efficient sales items. The production cost of such packs is very low, but the chains sell them for $0.1 per pack or even higher to the buyers. Talking about the packs for fruits and vegetables, according to Andriy Yarmak, the head of "Fruit-Inform" project, Ukrainian supermarket chains are still trying to get the producers and wholesalers to supply products in the disposable corrugated cardboard boxes, which are almost not used in the EU and USA. At the same time, the dynamic development of the reversible (reusable) containers in the EU countries and the USA may soon result in the significant changes in the structure of the packing industry of Ukraine.