Flexibility Is Key:
First-World and First-Rate Packaging From the Southern Tip of Africa

By Gill Loubser

Challenges facing South Africa’s packaging industry are huge. The need to get safe and nutritious food to millions of South Africans, most of whom live far from their rural roots, has to be balanced with achieving world-class standards as well as complying with stringent environmental demands. South Africa leads the continent in many areas, and the country maintains high standards for exporters and domestic suppliers alike.

From many perspectives, South African society is remarkable. People live in a range of circumstances barely kilometers apart—from the mansions of the affluent through to middle-class suburbs, and from low-cost housing to informal settlements—a situation that raises particular challenges for the country’s packaging professionals. They are required to devise first-world packaging for the convenience of the prosperous, meeting the demands of self-service retailing. They also have to supply affordable yet efficient packaging for the safe transportation of basic foodstuffs consumed by the vast majority of the country’s population. Alongside these apparently contradictory requirements is the need to minimize the use of packaging materials for both economic and environmental reasons.

Nampak updated South Africa’s Omo brand with this clay-coated board flexible carton with seven-color reverse gravure-printing on metallized film.

The World Health Organization estimates that, without effective packaging, developing countries lose up to 50% of their produce before it reaches consumers. The fact that South Africa— although usually classified as a developing economy—does not fall into this typical “developing world” scenario can be attributed to the dedication dedication of the country’s food scientists and packaging technologists.

South African packaging technology is acknowledged as being among the international frontrunners, and plays a vital role in the life of every South African—rich or poor, rural or urban. Without quality packaging, every South African citizen’s standard of living would be seriously undermined.

Strategic business tool

Packaging is a strategic business tool for national and international brand owners. It’s the key to developing, building and enhancing brands, not only for local markets but, increasingly, for global markets. Packaging provides both intellectual and emotional communication about a branded product, something that differentiates a product on the supermarket shelf and makes it instantly recognizable by consumers.

Although the South African packaging industry accounts for a small percentage of the world market, it’s nevertheless regarded as “first world” in terms of manufacturing facilities. State-of-the-art technology is continually commissioned in packaging plants around the country, while supermarket shelves bristle with products in ultra-modern packaging, just as enticing as the packaging seen in any “developed” country.

However, the fact that South Africa has a comparatively low per capita consumption of packaging compared to more developed countries (approximately $75 compared, for instance, to $200 in Australia) suggests that there’s considerable potential for growth as incomes rise and populations become increasingly urbanized.

In many of South Africa’s lesser-developed neighboring countries much food goes to waste through poor and inadequate storage and transport systems. Packaging can help to reduce this waste and, in so doing, contribute towards helping the continent conserve its resources and become less dependent on foreign assistance to meet its food needs as well as developing more products that can compete in world markets.

Thus, South African packaging companies are beginning to play an important role in the “African Renaissance,” with most major groups, especially the mighty Nampak group, active in all parts of the African continent.

Three-tier retailing

South Africa can be said to have a dual economy—with mostly “first world” standards but a largely “third world” population, so a three-tier retailing system strongly affects the packaging industry.

At the top end of the scale are the giant supermarket chains in urban areas whose customers demand—and get—first-world goods and service. Then come the township spazas—the name given to small shops in the densely populated areas that can feature both formal and informal housing. Here the accent is on smaller packs for easy affordability and portability. Interestingly, in this environment, there’s evidence of tremendous brand loyalty. At the very bottom end of the retailing spectrum are the street traders, and the emphasis is purely on affordability.

The three-tier retailing poses challenges to the brand owners, as it calls for different levels of sophistication. At the upper end stores, you find sophisticated packaging featuring all the features and technologies that you’d expect to find in any developed world environment. As in all developed economies, private labels are a factor in this retail environment, giving consumers enormous choices between branded goods and the supermarket’s own labels.

This ready-to-drink version of the popular Oros powdered drink was introduced to lower incomes in this low-cost flexible stand-up pouch by Astraflex.

This first-world retail sector caters for well-heeled consumers (obviously with motor cars) who can afford to shop in bulk and can easily transport their purchases home. Large multipacks of just about everything from whole cases of wine, to bulk packs of freezer-stored items like chicken, vegetables or croissants, to a dozen toilet rolls, or to half-a-dozen light bulbs. This, of course, means many different systems of collation. Most of these commodity purchases tend to be made weekly, fortnightly, or even monthly.

In the township spazas, here the customers are poor and mostly without personal transport. Because they live a hand-to-mouth existence, they tend to buy on a daily basis and prefer smaller, single-serve or single-dose packs. Despite this, however, they are brand conscious, so here you won’t find much in the way of private labels. It will be wellknown and trusted brands, in recognizable packaging.

At street trade level, there’s no brand loyalty at all, as these “distributors” buy in bulk and then dispense goods into mini packs without any branding on them at all. As you might suspect, there’s absolutely no brand loyalty here.

Fresh produce at home and for export

Much of Africa still loses a substantial percentage of food production because they have no proper infrastructure of any kind, whether harvesting, food processing or packaging technology. Those economies are largely based on subsistence farming. Because of South Africa’s generally firstworld infrastructure and large-scale farming enterprises, there is minimal loss of produce during processing and shipping, much like any other first-world country.

However, the increase of imported consumer goods threatens the South Africa packaging industry. A quick glance around any supermarket today reveals numerous imported food and other fast moving consumer goods— all coming into the country ready-packed. On the flip side of the coin, however, is the fact that South African packaging is increasingly finding its way around the world. Considerably helped by a comparatively weak currency, the South African Rand (currently 6 rands/dollar) has shown signs of strengthening in recent months.

Indeed, the South African packaging industry exports millions of rands worth of packaging directly to overseas customers, while further hundreds of millions of rands worth of packaging is exported indirectly by food and beverage processors who market South Africa’s bounty— food, wine, agricultural and other products—overseas.

Reduce, reuse, recycle

Misconceptions abound about the value of packaging, but the Packaging Council of South Africa (PACSA) plays a pivotal role in debunking the myths and ensuring a greater understanding of packaging’s many benefits. Since its inception in 1984, PACSA has become known— both nationally and internationally—as a credible representative of the South African packaging industry, with members drawn from all links in the packaging chain. Among PACSA’s prime successes are the initiation and support of programs and policies relating to the protection and improvement of the environment.

Gold Pack Award-Winners The fact that South African packaging is consistently recognized by the World Packaging Organization’s WorldStar program attests to the South African industry's level of success. Below are a few winners of the coveted Gold Pack Awards, organized biennially by the Institute of Packaging South Africa (IPSA). Hilfort Plastics won a Gold Pack trophy for this bright blue PET mineral water bottle (right). Bottled water is a vast and strategic market in South Africa and packaging plays a key role. This bottle excels in shape, color, and decoration, and in the functions it delivers. It can be placed on the table for serving water in up-market venues, and also stands out in the competitive environment of the retail shelf. Bowler Metcalf won the On-Pack Communication trophy for Innoxa’s Relax line of bathroom products. Decorated in seven colors and matte lacquered, these tubes exhibit exceptionally close print registration, achieved through high-quality plate and inking systems on an offset printing machine with UV curing. The consumer experience is complete—the soft, eye-catching graphics, the clear copy, and the soft touch of the plastic tube complement the soothing touch of the products. Nampak Flexibles Pietermaritzburg walked off with several awards for its Vinguard SO2 gasgenerating sheet. This aesthetically appealing product (developed entirely in South Africa) helps to prevent fungicidal decay on table grapes, ensuring they reach export markets in prime condition and compete effectively against grapes from other countries. This functional packaging solution is the result of cooperation between the table grape producers, the University of Stellenbosch, and Nampak Flexibles.

The packaging industry is committed to a program of action designed to ensure that the benefits of packaging are optimized and that potentially negative effects on the environment and waste stream are minimized. This programme centres on the concept of the Three R’s— Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.

Source reduction heads the waste management hierarchy, placing emphasis on ways in which the production of waste can be avoided in the first place, at a package’s conception. Among other things this entails a reduction in materials and energy used in packaging; changing packaging design and lightweighting; and changing production processes to generate fewer unusable by-products.

The packaging industry has a praiseworthy record in lightweighting various packaging forms. For instance a beverage can with a mass of 73g in 1955 now weighs in at only 16g. Similarly, a glass bottle has decreased its mass from 575g to 395g and a plastic bottle from 68g to 47g.

The second R involves Reusing an item in its original form for the same or a different purpose. There are many examples of items which can be reused: refillable glass and PET bottles; plastic crates used for the distribution of soft drinks, milk, and other foods and beverages; steel and plastic drums and buckets used for the distribution of bulk beverages, paints and chemicals: collapsible fiberboard boxes; and returnable pallets.

Recycling is the third R. For recycling to be sustainable, it has to be economically viable. High collection costs, capital expenditure and operating costs of equipment to process recycled materials can result in the price of recycled products being too high in comparison to products made from virgin raw materials.

South Africa has a strong story to tell when it comes to recycled packaging materials and has clocked up a massive increase in recycling of 116% over the past 15-year period, compared to a 65% increase in the tonnage of materials converted into packaging. PACSA’s vision is to have the full social, economic and environmental value of packaging acknowledged by all sectors of society, while its mission is to provide effective representation—particularly at government level—on issues that have an impact on the packaging industry.

Gill Loubser is Editor of South Africa’s Packaging Review and a past national chairman of the Institute of Packaging (SA). In 1995, Gill was named “Packaging Achiever” by the Packaging Council of South Africa in recognition of her years of dedication to the South African packaging industry. Gill can be reached at gill@natpub.co.za.