For sustainability reasons, the German dairy producer Milchwerke Schwaben wanted to reduce the weight of their 1 kg container for yoghurt and desserts. By joining forces with Berry Superfos, the company not only got a significant weight reduction, but also the added bonus of smarter logistics and improved efficiency at its filling line.

Milchwerke Schwaben, a leading dairy producer in Germany, recently wanted to redesign its 1 kg UniPak container for the Weideglück brand. The goal was, out of sustainability considerations, to reduce the container’s weight and its use of base materials. However, according to Jakob Ramm, managing director at Milchwerke Schwaben, he and his team got much more than they asked for.

“We wanted a weight reduction and we achieved almost 19% which we are very satisfied with. The 1 kg container now weighs 35 grams as opposed to 43 grams before. But happily, we got even more than that from the redesign project with Berry Superfos because, thanks to alterations in the design, we can now load more containers onto each pallet. In addition, after modifying our filling line slightly to fit the redesigned container, we have fewer handling costs and our filling line simply runs much better now,” says Jakob Ramm.

Many small adjustments add up to a whole lot

Instead of 540 kg on each pallet, Milchwerke Schwaben can now fit a total of 594 kg of containers with yoghurt or milk-based desserts on every pallet. This benefit is thanks to the redesigned container’s reduced headspace and improved indexation which keeps the positioning of pails in a stack. However, these are not the only changes made. Jakob Ramm explains:

“To achieve the lower weight, Berry Superfos made several small adjustments. They reduced the headspace, made the skirt shorter and the handles thinner, and changed the tamper evidence function. In this way, we were able to meet the demand from retailers and consumers to reduce the amount of packaging material without compromising the container’s great consumer appeal,” says Jakob Ramm.

UniPak for almost 30 years Milchwerke Schwaben is a pioneer in the dairy market. Almost 30 years ago, the company was first to introduce the 1 kg container for yoghurt and milk-based desserts. Today, the company is still number 1 in this segment in Germany and also exports to a number of other European countries.

The 1 kg packaging was then – as it is now – the UniPak container from Berry Superfos. When first launched, the container weighed 50 gram which, a few years later, was reduced to 43 gram and now it is just 35 gram.

Award-winning IML

The redesigned container maintains its fantastic In-Mould Labelling decoration to make consumers notice the product on the supermarket shelves.

In fact, the Weideglück brand won an award from the In-mould Labelling Association (IMDA) earlier this year for the decoration on the yoghurt container because of the pack’s smart label with an embedded code which the eye cannot detect. This printed code – a so-called Digimarc – allows consumers to interact with the product and link to a website via a mobile app. This enables consumers to check the origins of the product and also allows retailers to reduce time at the checkout.

The use of the Digimarc matches the Weideglück brand perfectly since the products contain natural ingredients only and are branded under the slogan “Weideglück. Da Weiss ich, was drin ist” which translates to “Weideglück. Then I know what’s in it.”

Want to know more about UniPak or weight reduction?

Milchwerke Schwaben use UniPak in a round shape with room for 1 kg of yoghurt or dessert. However, the range of sizes, shapes and applications of UniPak is probably the most extensive on the European market. If you want to know more about the UniPak container or how to achieve weight reduction of your packaging solution, please do not hesitate to contact your local Berry Superfos sales office.