Sustainable Packaging
Industry Experts discuss all the new materials and ways that packaging can be more sustainable and how we can do our parts to help recycle and reuse. Sustainable Packaging is and will continue to affect us all in our daily lives. We have lots of fun and get down to the real data of what's working to help our planet!
Sustainable Packaging
VP Lara Botta from Botta Eco Packaging in Milan Italy
https://www.botta.it/en/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lara-botta-54098a5/
How did her Grandma start this packaging company in 1947?
What are the most eco friendly packaging options in Italy?
Can you access their LCA calculator on their website?
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/packaging-today-show/id1656906367
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https://www.linkedin.com/in/cory-connors/
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Welcome to sustainable packaging with Cory Connors . This is a first for this show. We have a guest who is from Milan, Italy. Her name is Laura Bata. She's the VP of Bata packaging, business development and innovation manager.
Lara Botta:I am very well and very excited to be here. Corey, finally, I get to
Cory Connors:meet you ciao. Yes. Right. Thank you so much for taking some time. I know we connected on LinkedIn and, and I'm just really excited to have an international guests. This is.
Lara Botta:Well, am I the first one?
Cory Connors:No, no, my friend Chandru is from South Africa. So a few from England, but yeah, you're the first in Italy. How's that? You're famous in Italy now, for sure. So can you tell us about your background a little bit? How how did you get into the sustainable packaging world?
Lara Botta:Sure. It's a long story, actually, because I come from a completely different background. I have worked in the pharmaceuticals multinational company between Switzerland and UK for about 10 years before I came back to Italy. So decided to come back, had my career was already in the pharmaceutical business. However we had a family. Business in a corrugated cardboard boxes. And dad wanted to know what my what I wanted to do when I became a, a woman. And I actually had a different career, but saying no. Difficult. So I said, okay. In between jobs, I'll, I'll try so that when I say no, because this was what I thought was gonna happen. Then it's an informed decision. So here I come in 1520 years ago into the family firm. And I get static about the, the perfume of paper or printed paper, the fact of being in a small, medium enterprise, whereas I was in a multi-national before. So I never looked back since then.
Cory Connors:Obviously
Lara Botta:you're doing, I can tell you a little bit about how the company started off. A nice story. I think my grandmother in 1947, who decided to, to leave her job, a stable job, and she had four kids and to feed them all was a little bit complicated, so she decided to do more. And so she went in her cellar and started making boxes and going around Milan, trying to sell. And that's how it all started. So she's like a start upper of a different Polk, a different era. And I'd like to think that some of her DNA passed through, but yeah, a woman in 1947 after the war, Not that, not that that's very
Cory Connors:impressive. Your grandma was an entrepreneur before that word was a thing. Probably
Lara Botta:yeah. Yeah. Just about, yeah, but from that are getting into sustainable packaging. So what we used to do is just corrugated cardboard boxes manufacturing. We started looking outside the box, thinking outside the box. So. Getting into innovation, trying to do things differently as they had already been done. We knew the facts. We knew that customers were now ready to change brands. If their packaging wasn't sustainable. We knew that this was a thing, but it still hadn't. The the big companies yet. So we read all this research and we knew there was something there. So we started thinking about the box was a circular by nature. So we were already in that, in this sustainable packaging realm. So we started looking inside the box. So fillers were usually plastic or can we do something in paper? We looked outside the box. So. Tapes and a document holders. How do we move the boxes? How are they optimized on pallets? And we created a pallet calculator to try and give us some improvements there because of empty space. We knew that the space by the way was a 46. Bill is still a $46 billion problem. So if somebody manages to avoid empty space in stock in transport, then They really found something. So trying to investigate all these issues that were surrounding packaging from a sustainable viewpoint was what made me to stick. So we started off with actually innovations on On the web. So we decided we wanted to go into e-commerce let's try, but we didn't want to be just like any other e-commerce and produce boxes, put them in the warehouse and then sell them as in when people requested them. That was already there. There was nothing new. So we decided, okay, let's use our boxes as well as any other competitor that actually produces boxes and has them in their warehouse and create a platform economy. So. We didn't invent anything new. This platform economy existed in other sectors, but in the packaging sector is kind of something new. And this gives us a great success being mentioned as the top hundred, that European digital champions from financial times. So we kind of got excited by it so we can do these things and we can go and do things we've never done before. And it brings us in, brings me to the frugal innovation concept. I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but I find it fascinating frugal innovation is a way of innovating. So it's a concept that comes from developing countries. So in India they call it jugaad innovation. Basically they don't have the same infrastructure as developed countries. They don't have the same resources or the same money and embrace. That developed countries have, but yet they still have to innovate and solve problems. So the way they do it is doing more with less. So trying to think outside the box, lateral thinking and finding solutions anywhere with what they have which is usually little and not the same things that we have and that, so we decided to translate this concept into small, medium enterprises. I'm not sure about the Business market in in the us, but in Italy, 97% of businesses are SMEs. So this is something that can be translated easily and we need innovation from small and medium enterprises. Often these companies see obstacles to innovation, so they just do what they've always been done because they know that they can do that properly. And they've always been doing it exceptionally. And they don't have the same resources. They don't have the same investment that maybe big corporations have. So that obstacle, we tried with this concept to open it up. So there's no need to have big amounts of money. You just have to think differently because. They managed to do it in developing countries with nothing much, then we should be able to do it too. So this kind of started off and you do a few changes. Then you change perspective, you see things from a different angle and and you see new opportunities and new problems to solve. So this is how it kind of all that. Started I suppose. And we got we started to get, having fun with it and we continuously invent new things and try and innovate the, in the way that we can. We are a small, medium enterprise, but we don't want to stop.
Cory Connors:That's amazing. What what year was your box plant founded?
Lara Botta:1947.
Cory Connors:So that with your grandma over two years ago, and then what year did you guys start the online platform for all packaging?
Lara Botta:It must be back in 2017.
Cory Connors:And that's when you won the award. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Very impressive. Can you tell us about,
Lara Botta:Other awards in sustainable packaging to actually so there's something new. We trying that push a little further. I suppose the biggest MediaTek success that we've had has been with one of our products, which is echo envelopes. These are. That are padded with paper corrugated paper. So instead of using bubble wrap within the, the envelopes So the new technology may put the corrugated paper. So it's it's still protected. It's all paper. So it can be recycled in paper. And the brief we had was from a supermarket chain. So they had e-commerce and grocery deliveries and they use. Bubble wrap for the most fragile of products. So bottles, Sawyer, souls, or eggs. So they, they actually wrapped it further within the grocery. Packaging. But they didn't like it, but not only did the supermarkets not like it, but of course the consumers started not wanting plastic anymore and bubble wrap anymore. So the difficulty there was, you have to be sustainable with the material, with the supply chain, with. Package the goods in the grocery warehouses and of course economic sustainability. So you have to look at all these points. So it sounds easy, but it's not. So it took lots of months of trial and error with different materials, different products until we reached the final solution, which since we're in video, I can show you and it's. The corrugated paper within, and now it's in everybody's households. Whoever does that, it's a, it's a national supermarket chains. So from doing, from producing a commodity that reaches warehouses and business to business. So our product reaches the households now, which is a really exciting and had an exceptional MediaTek Coverage. And not only in Italy, but throughout the world, we had Argentina, we had Russia, we had all sorts because the idea was not only had you changed the packaging into something innovative, which has the, the paper padded, but you took something that was initially thought for different sectors. And brought it into a different world, which is which again means that you don't really have to think the wheel again. You can go and look at other sectors, see if there's anything that could be useful and tweak it in a way that can become useful for your own sector. Trying to. You know, cut corners, make it small thorough. And now time is an issue because big corporations have given themselves difficult goals and imminent goals. So time is really sensitive and you need to read. New packaging materials, new packaging solutions as best as possible and as fast as well.
Cory Connors:Yeah, very well done. I haven't told you about this yet, but we have started a greenhouse page on Ubuntoo . I saw you there this morning and I saw that you have an eco sleeve. Lara Botta: I do I do. Can you tell us about that? Because this is a, I saw that and I thought, okay, this is very cool.
Lara Botta:So this is paper corrugate, which gets corrugated. And because of the way it's corrugated it's actually becomes elastic, which means. That you can it's, it's a sleeve, so you can easily interpret any bottle. It takes the shape of the bottle or flask, or so it goes in beauty or wine or any, anything really that is fragile. And the idea is it replaces plastic again because plastic consumers don't want plastic. It's not difficult to recycle actually, but. Stays in the environment. Of course. There's an issue. So this all you got chosen in a bone to quite awhile back but also the Polytechnic university of terrain got it in its permanent exposure. What do you call it? Yeah, so The design department decided that it was worth a, a place in there in the
Cory Connors:wow. That's wonderful. Congratulations. It is artwork. They are beautiful. You know, that's something that people don't think about packaging.
Lara Botta:Yeah, true. I don't have to, it doesn't need to be complicated. It can be simple, but as long as it does the job and this does the job and it actually looks good as well. So we developed even more, more from the eco sleeve into the same concept of having the corrugated paper. We're in asleep though. This, the, the addition of this compared to the elastic paper cover is the fact that you can actually print. So if you had a cool bottle that you'd want to print that. Outside of it, then you could you could use the plus, and it would also have a marketing impact the communication impact on the shelves or wherever. If you go to duty freeze that, and both of those need to be protected, then you can have your whole shelf printed with the bottle that's within it. So that's kind of
Cory Connors:original. Very nice. Well done. The people listening, won't be able to see this, but behind you, there's a really neat picture of a little corrugated family. And I just, I, I love it. It's a little on the face of the box. You can see there's a little edge face. It's just really neat. I like that a lot.
Lara Botta:And it's part of me, it's part of what I do every day. And the family is asked, I suppose, the whole company together working. And I think he actually comes from Japan. They had a campaign where the people could create the best picture with the corrugated. Characters and I thought this was quite cool, but the whole, the whole office is full of these pictures. I like them a lot.
Cory Connors:I love that. I'll have to get one people, you know, they call me Corygated . So yeah. So tell us about the corrugated market or the packaging market over in Milan. Are you guys experiencing the same kind of unprecedented demand that we are here in the USA?
Lara Botta:Yes we are. And I think part of it is due to post COVID. So the backlog that has occurred with we had the companies shut down for a while. So the backlog has has become substantial. But also not, not just that, of course transport has increased tremendously from China India. So plus sustainability has meant. Paper has become the number one preferred choice plastic, nearly Christmas. And I don't know in us, but Christmas is definitely peak season. So prices have been going. But there's such so much demand that it's really complicated. Plus I think people are scared of being without boxes because there's lots of delays. If you're without packaging, you can ship and if you can ship, you have no revenues. So what do they do? They have double the amount of quantities. And so despite being. Very good moment in terms of demand. I fear that it could level off with time. So yeah, once they, the warehouses are all full, then they may be a whole altogether, which means we need to be prepared that maybe this is not the standard there's going to be. Long-term.
Cory Connors:That's a very interesting way to think about it. I haven't thought about the fact that people are over buying out of fear. So eventually there'll be a surplus of custom packaging. That's unnecessary probably. Or I think it would take longer
Lara Botta:to use. So at some point, the manufacturing in packaging business where we'll see a decrease or even a hold, I'm not quite sure there's that. Both at increasing demand in a wide point of view. So paper is actually more demanded. E-commerce has increased a lot. So the need for single packaging has increased. But then again the fact that there's so much increase in price once it reaches retail, I'm not quite sure whether everybody will be willing or able. To purchase at such a higher cost because it's not only cardboard, it's, it's everything that's increasing. So the retail price will have to shift to.
Cory Connors:That's very unfortunate, but very true costs are changing quickly. So do you see you know, or have you guys increased your capabilities of production or are you just getting. Doing the most that you can at what you have
Lara Botta:the most we can with what we have. And the problem is we don't. The paper we need. So if there's a shortage of paper, my machines need the paper. So maybe I need the full truck and it's expected for it today. And only half track of paper arrives. What it is. So it's the hard way of working because everything needs to be checked and rechecked and changed and rechanged, which is something that usually just flows smoothly. Once you get the, the order and your system, it just flows. And now you have to pick it up numerous times because things change. So. So dramatically, drastically and quickly, that
Cory Connors:is a really fast change lately. It seems like we're just constantly pivoting and saying, oh, well, now this I know, what about this? Have you, have you tried that idea? I think
Lara Botta:the fact of being a smaller company makes you a little bit more flexible, a little bit more reactive to the changes
Cory Connors:now. Well, what do you think is the future? What do you think we'll continue to make corrugated as the sustainable packaging alternative? Or do you see other things coming this way?
Lara Botta:Certainly corrugated paper will, will continue. Sustainability measures mean that we will try and improve on the weight, the models, the, the empty space that we want to avoid. But we can't do without packaging. If people want the products at their footstep or in the retail store, they need to be packaged somehow. So we'll never reach zero, but we were, we can surely improve. One thing that I think should be improved is having e-commerce and transportation. As is today means often, I don't know you asked, but surely in Italy we need to reinforce the card would reinforce the packaging tremendously because the package gets treated badly. It gets thrown. I don't know how, but it gets damaged very easily. So when it's a single package and an e-commerce, so. If we can improve somehow the way that these packages get treated within the delivery phase, which is probably four touch points at least then that. Make our life easier and decrease the weight of the packaging decrease the thickness of the packaging, because it made me one flute instead of two. And that can be improved. Also. One thing that we've Stride to a project we've been looking into is lifecycle assessments. So the fact that everybody's going into sustainability or it's talking in shortly now talking about sustainability means that you need to try and understand the difference between real sustainability and greenwashing and to try and do that. You need to find something numerical that can actually give you credibility. Make sure that you are actually improving things and you are improving in comparison to some other materials, some other products, some other competitor. And so we looked into lifecycle assessment. Of course, it's very, very time-consuming as well as expensive and very thorough. So definitely a good solution. But not available to all. So if you go back to frugal innovation and the fact that not every small medium enterprise has the, the actual resources to undertake LCA studies for every product they make. We thought, well, why not try and create something that can be useful for everyone to get into the sustainability path, because it is a path. It's not something that today I'm not sustainable tomorrow. I'm sustainable. It's something that you slowly get into it and you need to be. Drawn into this path and slowly improve yourself. So what we created is this LCA calculator, which wants to be a simplified, very simplified LCA calculator, which takes into consideration averages and numerous assumptions just to. Let people play about with the different materials and how they impact on the environment. So if however many kilos of paper, you use it in a packaging, it will give you a result in CO2 emissions. If you use a different material, it can give you something else. So it kind of gets you into the jest of things and toxic stainable before you actually may be entailed in a real study within your own your own. We decided to put online. And
Cory Connors:oh, that's amazing. Is that no charger is that part of
Lara Botta:no charge? No charge. So yeah, people can have. For free and if they want something more of course this can be provided. We also propose Carbon compensation as a service. So carbon compensation is something that many companies do. Usually companies who are not as sustainable is not the right word, not as green, not as a, you know, lots of energy or lots of CO2 emissions. So they. Improve themselves by doing this compensation. Cause they can't eliminate the, the carbon emissions they, they have. So what we decided that we already have a product that is sustainable because it's circular by nature. So amongst others, it's a sustainable product, I suppose. But whoever wants to there's an unavoidable CO2 emissions, even with a sustainable product. So producing something actually has CO2 emissions. So if you want, even that last mile can be compensated. Through a third party and that compensation is provided as a service. So if you want to, you can actually invest that money into a project that is a sustainability project can be environmental, social, sustainability, anything that is in line. Your corporations message I suppose. So that's something else we decided to offer to our customers. And again, it's an another way of letting people play with sustainability, understand sustainability and get the gist of it and decide how to invest and make sure that they do something good. Environmentally,
Cory Connors:you guys are really making big differences over there. Congratulating. Very good. Try.
Lara Botta:Yeah. And the palate calculator again, is something that we, that we decided to do. Again, it's a simple, it's free on our website. And the idea is if you can optimize your pallet load, you're gonna, it's going to cost less in terms of stocking. And it's gonna it's gonna cost less in terms of transportation and ultimately less pollution, because if you can fit more stuff in the same truck, then of course. Less transport that needs to be done again, another idea, and you know, there's, there's a lot more sophisticated tools out there and they can be very expensive. We decided to create the algorithm and give it for free. And if it can help anyone, why not? The ultimate goal is being sustainable. All of us because the planet is one and there's no planet B
Cory Connors:what is this program called?
Lara Botta:It's called pallet calculator, the website.
Cory Connors:I will put a link to the website in the show notes so that everyone can, can find all these great tools that that Lara has provided. Wow. Just what a great show. You're, amazing what you're doing. Thank you so much for your efforts and sustainable packaging. I hope more companies follow your lead and well done. Thank you so much for your time.
Lara Botta:Thank you. And I like being with someone who is as excited as I am on sustainable packaging.
Cory Connors:Good. I'd like to thank our sponsor, Landsberg, Orora . We appreciate you so much. And to anyone listening, please take a minute to review the show and we'll keep making more. Thank you so much, Laura.
Lara Botta:Thank you. Speak soon.
