£2m sustainable food packaging hub

AMRC Cymru has secured the BITES (Business, Innovation and Tourism Escalator Scheme) funding to develop an emerging technology demonstrator specifically for the food and drink sector that will accelerate the adoption of waste-reducing eco-innovations by integrating Industry 4.0 technologies in the packaging industry.

Lesley Griffiths, Minister for Environment, Energy & Rural Affairs, said: “Our ambition is to raise Wales’ international profile and proactively market our innovation in quality food and drink to the world. I believe the innovations we are exploring at AMRC Cymru can deliver a range of measures to future-proof the industry in Wales.

“We want to see the food, drink and packaging industry reducing its reliance on manual labour and increase skill levels within the sector so we are extremely interested in exploring innovation in processes. This will drive forward the industry into a new era of green growth in the Welsh economy and it is vital the sector responds to these high potential opportunities. This can only be achieved by urgently developing new processes and incorporating the new technologies to tackle single-use plastic and recycling.”

Food and Drink Wales believe the sustainability centre will become a hub for the uptake of emerging technologies and materials in the food and drink packaging supply chain. Beyond that, Welsh Government want the AMRC to take a lead on the adoption of waste-reducing eco-innovations in the sector that work towards increased productivity and lower Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).

The demonstrator will exhibit the AMRC’s capabilities in advanced automation, collaborative robotics, additive manufacturing and visualisation; there will also be prototyping and functional test equipment for new packaging solutions and ideas.

“These technologies are widely used in other industries but don’t really exist within food and drink. There are new challenges for us as food and drink packaging companies work in a high-speed, low-cost environment, so the demonstrator will display how the technologies can be implemented in a different manufacturing set up,” said Bobby Manesh, AMRC Cymru’s Food and Drink Technical Lead.

The £2m funding will be used in two key areas at AMRC Cymru: the development of an emerging technology demonstrator that comprises a re-configurable, modular system for prototyping production processes; and equipment infrastructure that supports the progress of new designs, materials and processes.

“The hub will have a central demonstrator based on a conveyor system which will be linked together with collaborative robots, automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and our own engineers wearing exoskeletons. Everything will be visualised and tracked through cameras so we will have a digital twin of the process that can be viewed on a screen in real time,” said Manesh.

www.amrc.co.uk