ZOTEFOAMS’ ReZorce innovation has been named as the winner in the Product Innovation category at the 2024 Reuters Sustainability Awards.
This year, 700 entries from 50 countries contested 17 categories judged by an international panel of business leaders, academics, designers, and changemakers in the field of sustainability.
ReZorce won the Product Innovation category ahead of 13 other shortlisted entrants including other aseptic liquid packaging board (LPB) beverage cartons and packaging innovations.
Currently available aseptic beverage cartons – used for products such as fruit juices which are not refrigerated – are produced from composite layers of wood fibre, aluminium and polymer bonded together (LPB).
Unlike ReZorce, these composite materials cannot be recycled through mainstream processes. ReZorce on the other hand has a mono-material design which leads to ‘excellent’ performance in standard material recovery facilities (MRFs). The resulting recyclate can be reused, including in the core of ReZorce cartons, bringing the prospect of circularity to the 250 billion unit-per-annum beverage carton market for the first time.
Zotefoams is currently in the latter stages of developing ReZorce for beverage carton applications and is preparing for trials with a north European supermarket chain.
During the Awards ceremony on October 1, judge Danielle Holly, associate director of the Aspen Institute, commented, “The judges thought [ReZorce] was an excellent and practical step towards fully recyclable packaging for widely used food and beverage formats. It’s exciting, it’s disruptive and it will really deliver an immense impact in everyday lives. Well done for pioneering it!”
Ronan Cox, Zotefoams Group CEO, commented, “We are delighted that ReZorce has been recognised on the global stage in this way. Entrants to the Reuters Sustainability Awards include some of the world’s best-known and most-admired companies and it is an honour for Zotefoams to stand alongside them.
“It is also telling that the judges recognised the need for wholesale change rather than incremental improvement in pack formats such as aseptic beverage cartons.
“This award which follows recent success in the Deutsche Verpackungsinstitut’s German Packaging Awards, serves as further confirmation that ReZorce is a much-needed product with a bright future. We are 100% focussed on translating these award achievements into on-shelf success, as ReZorce looks to finally bring a truly sustainable solution to the aseptic carton industry and beyond.
Packaging Scotland spoke to the Zotefoams team earlier this year to find out more about the ReZorce innovation. To read the article click here.
