Six major consumer goods companies are pooling R&D efforts to accelerate paper-based flexible packaging, with the focus on making alternatives work on production lines as well as meeting recyclability, cost and product-protection requirements.

The launch of the PaperFlex Consortium brings together Colgate-Palmolive, Mars, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble and Unilever to tackle one of the more difficult challenges in flexible packaging: developing paper-based alternatives that can deliver the performance brands currently get from plastic.

Convened by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and powered by (RE)SET, the consortium will focus on collaborative research and trials, particularly in markets where formal collection and recycling systems are limited. Its aim is not simply to replace plastic with paper, but to accelerate solutions that can meet the technical, economic and environmental demands of commercial packaging.

Sharing the development challenge

For brands, one of the immediate benefits of the consortium is the opportunity to share the cost, risk and learning involved in developing new packaging technologies.

The Foundation says the consortium intends to shape, fund and conduct collaborative trials covering areas including biodegradable coatings, new coating technologies and ways of improving the performance of paper-based materials on manufacturing lines.

That brings the focus beyond the material itself. A paper structure may offer a route away from persistent plastic, but it still needs to run through existing or adapted equipment, protect the product, provide adequate shelf life and deliver a format that consumers can use.

The Foundation’s research found that responsibly designed paper-based flexible packaging does not yet exist at the required performance, scale and cost for most applications.

For manufacturers, this makes machinability and process performance an important part of the innovation challenge.

From laboratory to production line

The consortium could therefore give brands access to a broader pool of technical learning before committing individual packaging programmes to large-scale deployment.

This is particularly relevant for applications such as sachets, wrappers and pouches, where flexible plastics have become highly established but can be difficult to recycle economically.

Paper-based alternatives can introduce their own technical challenges. Barrier performance, moisture and grease resistance, sealing, coatings, adhesives and line speeds all have to be considered. The Foundation’s earlier work also identifies the need for packaging to meet consumer and economic requirements alongside environmental criteria.

The consortium’s collaborative model means that learning from trials — including approaches that do not prove viable — can contribute to a wider understanding of what works at industrial scale.

As Mars’ global VP of healthy planet and chief circularity officer Allison Lin puts it, the consortium is intended to challenge the traditional approach of companies innovating independently, while using legal oversight, defined boundaries and an independent convenor.

A route to lower development costs

Scale is another important consideration.

Paper-based flexible packaging can currently carry a cost disadvantage compared with established plastic formats, while plastic has benefited from decades of optimisation across materials, machinery and production processes.

By bringing several major packaging users together, PaperFlex aims to help accelerate development and potentially reduce the cost of scaling viable technologies. The Foundation says joint R&D can allow promising innovations to be developed faster and at lower cost.

For brands, that could mean a more developed technology base to draw from when evaluating future packaging formats, rather than each company having to solve the same material and processing challenges independently.

Six criteria for development

The work will be guided by six criteria established by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation earlier this year.

Paper-based alternatives should be responsibly sourced and produced, meet technical, economic and consumer requirements, be recyclable locally, avoid hazardous chemicals and persistent plastic pollution, and fit into a broader circular economy strategy.

The consortium also has a dual end-of-life ambition: recyclability where collection and recycling systems allow it, alongside biodegradability for packaging that could otherwise escape into the environment.

That distinction is important for manufacturers. The objective is not simply to substitute one material for another, but to develop packaging that works within the infrastructure and environmental conditions of the markets in which it is used.

What it could mean for manufacturers

For brand owners, PaperFlex effectively creates a shared development platform around several issues that are difficult to resolve individually: materials, coatings, barrier performance, machinability, cost and end-of-life performance.

The six founding companies will retain their own packaging strategies and make individual decisions about what they adopt. But the consortium provides a mechanism for pooling expertise, funding trials and generating shared learning before solutions reach commercial scale.

The Foundation is now inviting other FMCG companies, innovators, suppliers and investors to participate.

For packaging suppliers and equipment manufacturers, that could also create opportunities to contribute to the next stage of development — particularly where paper-based structures require changes to converting, filling, sealing or other production processes.

The immediate outcome will not be a wholesale switch from plastic to paper. Instead, PaperFlex is designed to close the gap between paper-based packaging that is technically promising and packaging that can actually perform at industrial scale.

That could give brands a larger technology base from which to assess alternatives as packaging requirements, recycling infrastructure and regulatory expectations continue to develop.