Making sure that everything is perfect on the outside

Speciality rice, millet and buckwheat now available for a limited time in packagings made of 100 percent paper

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[05/18] For more and more people not only the food quality but also the quality of the packaging is becoming increasingly important. The important question is: which kind of materials are used for the packaging of the food that I am consuming?

For Rapunzel, the packaging issue is also very important - at the same time, this topic is very complex. Because food packaging must comply with many requirements that most people are probably not aware of.

Currently, we are testing if packagings made of 100 percent paper for Rapunzel millet, buckwheat and four types of rice can fulfill our needs. Over a period of nine months, we will market 1kg paper packages in both health food stores and the organic food trade. We are curious how our customers will react. Just try it!

Brief information about packagings:

Food packagings must comply with the most diverse requirements and demands
Reconciling these demands is often difficult
The Rapunzel packaging workgroup permanently examines new packaging solutions
The packaging types must also be compatible with the Rapunzel philosophy
Rapunzel examines packagings from 100 percent paper for some of our own products

How packaging must perform

The bags for our speciality flours have a thin plastic coating, because the flours are strongly hygroscopic

Packagings protect the products and must preserve their quality. Moreover, they provide room for important product information on labels, imprints, attachments or stickers.

Appropriate packagings will run well in the packaging machine and are suitable for automated packaging. The packaging quality also ensures that a product can be transported without damage and can be stored well. In addition to an appealing look, the handling quality of the packaging is another important criterion: how can the customer open the packaging, can it be reclosed and many more details play a role.

The environmental aspect is another big issue: packagings should be environmentally-friendly, resource-friendly and recyclable and the raw materials that the packaging is made of should be naturally available.

A qualified team continuously tests new developments

The packaging topic is very complex and it becomes clear that it is very difficult to reconcile all requirements and demands. For that reason, some years ago, Rapunzel Naturkost has established an in-house task force that focuses on packaging topics. Highly-qualified staff from the purchase department, the quality assurance, product management and the production departments cooperate closely in this workgroup. Depending on the problems at hand, the colleagues are further supported by additional staff from different departments. That way, we can tackle the packaging topic in an integrated manner.

The workgroup that is also called "packaging task force", examines new possibilities and novel packaging solutions. However, this is not as easy as it seems at first sight, because not every available packaging type is suitable for every food product.

Do we protect our valuable products sufficiently and are the packagings that we use as environmentally-friendly and resource-friendly as possible? Take a look for example at sample or travel packagings: if we package muesli or sugar in paper, the cereal flakes would soften over time and the sugar would get rock-hard, making breakfast or the afternoon coffee for the customer very unpleasant.

Sigrid Barry (director product management department) and Margarita Stiehle (packaging manager) examine the new paper bags at the packaging machine

Organic packaging film is not necessarily organic

When we purchase packaging materials, Rapunzel has to rely on products that are offered by packaging producers. What kind of packaging is available and in what quantities is the packaging available? Compared to conventional food producers, Rapunzel procures rather small packaging quantities. This limits the range of packagings that are available for us.

For us it is important that our packagings are compatible with our company guidelines. This applies particularly to biodegradable packagings and materials made from renewable resources that are marketed by the packaging producers.

At the first glance, renewable raw materials and biodegradable materials sound wonderfully ecological. However, these types of packaging films are partially made with genetically modified plants. And if the packaging films are made without GMO, pesticides and chemical fertilizers are often used, because the plants that are used for packaging materials are conventionally grown and contaminate soil and water through overfertilization and agrochemistry. Moreover, the areas where these packaging plants are grown often compete with food production as is the case for packaging film made from corn starch. All this fundamentally disagrees with the Rapunzel vision for food quality and with our company philosophy.

Another critical aspect is the biodegradability of plant based bioplastics: for the degradation of such plants stable temperatures and a uniform humidity are needed. In a normal household composter, this is often not the case. Even composting plants often have problems with such materials.

Foils made from cellulose (wood), on the other hand, require a special sealing wax. The sealed seams can withstand only low filling pressures. Already the packaging pressure of a 500 gram rice package would be too high for the sealed seams.

„Why does Rapunzel use no biodegradable foils?“

Our customers often ask us this question. In the following, we summarize our most important reasons for not using eco-films:

the raw materials for biodegradable or plant based packaging materials are produced conventionally with artificial fertilizers and pesticides
some of the raw materials are made from genetically manipulated plants
certain eco-films have very weak sealed seams that cannot withstand high filling levels (e.g. eco-films made of cellulose)

Ongoing optimization

Until the packaging industry provides better solutions, Rapunzel will go a different path: in order to save valuable resources, we use the thinnest possible packaging foils. We use packaging foils made of PP (polypropyene) and PE (polyethylene). Softeners such as phtalates and bisphenol A are not used for the production of our packaging foils. We will continue to deal with the packaging topic also in the future and we will stay in active exchange with the packaging producers - always in search of packaging alternatives to mineral oil based plastics.

Test series: packagings made of 100 percent paper

Currently, Rapunzel is starting a test series: new packaging materials made of 100 percent paper for relatively resistant products such as rice. Paper is made from renewable raw materials and can be recycled without problems. The only disadvantage of our test packages: they have no transparent window, meaning that the customer can no longer see the product from the outside.

We will market the test series in health food stores and the organic food trade industry - and we are curious what our customers think of this new package. Why don't you try it? We are testing the new packagings for 1 kg packages millet, buckwheat and four types of speciality rice.

New packagings for these 1 kg packages:

Parboiled speciality long-grain rice white, 1kg

Long-grain speciality rice white, 1kg

Long-grain speciality rice brown, 1kg

Round-grain speciality rice brown, 1kg

Millet, 1kg

Buckwheat, 1kg