News

Young’s deal is major boost for box makers

THE adoption by seafood giant Young’s Seafood of a revolutionary fi sh box design has meant a major boost for Grimsby firm, Cool Blue Box Company Ltd.

Now Cool Blue, which has developed the new high specification food grade polypropylene container, will expand its influence into other chilled products in the UK and worldwide.
A spokesman for the company said it had received “many enquiries” from different industries including poultry, meat, food sauces, chocolate and pharmaceuticals. “This is because they all see re-useable packaging as the way forward,” he added.

This month, Young’s Seafood has started using Cool Blue’s revolutionary new form of packaging for its salmon, which it has been calculated, will reduce carbon emissions by 78%*. Mike Parker, former deputy CEO of Young’s and now deputy CEO of Foodvest, said: “I am tremendously impressed with the potential of this project. It is a greener solution all round – and hopefully we’re witnessing the beginning of the end for the polystyrene fi sh box, which would be a massive environmental revolution for the whole seafood industry.”

Cool Blue Box has invested £1.8million in the manufacture of 100,000 boxes so far. Managing director of the fi rm, Steve Moore, comments: “We are absolutely delighted that Young’s has shown the vision to help us pioneer this project and make it a reality. Cool Blue Box has many advantages, but the biggest of these by far is the reduction in carbon emissions. Using the Carbon Trust’s methodology we have calculated this to be as much as a 78% reduction when compared with traditional polystyrene boxes.”

Eco-friendly

Now Cool Blue Box Company is convinced it can grow the market place for the eco-friendly packaging even further, which could lead to more investment and jobs at its manufacturing base. The company has disclosed it is working on even more advanced designs, given the success of this concept and that as the Cool Blue Box Company grows, it is looking for “talented individuals” to help push forward this new concept of re-useable packaging. The company is also looking at the strategic placement of staff in locations that are central to the seafood supply chain. “We have designed different sized boxes, including 2-3 kg, 5-6 kg and 10-12 kg and are moving into production for these this year. They can then be used for transportation of fresh products to other factories and retail outlets,” the company told FISHupdate.

Young’s has historically received fresh salmon from suppliers in polystyrene boxes – handling around two million such boxes each year. Now, the partnership with the Cool Blue Box Company means it is piloting a ‘green’ alternative. The Cool Blue Box is made from lightweight food grade polypropylene that can be sterilised at high temperatures and so repeatedly re-used. It is cooled by a reservoir of food-safe gel in the lid, which can be refrozen to at least -40°C. Because the method requires very little ice, there’s room for more salmon in each box – which in turn means that up to four tonnes of extra fi sh can be transported in each 40ft lorry.

Microban technology is built-in to the Cool Blue boxes during the manufacturing process and becomes an intrinsic part of the box that will not wash off or wear away. Microban antibacterial protection is EU approved for safe food contact. It inhibits the growth of potentially harmful bacteria such as Salmonella, Listeria and E Coli. EU legislation now makes it compulsory for all fi sh coming into the food market to have the ability to be traced not only to the time and place of origin, but also through processing and retailing. Each Cool Blue box incorporates high tech, microchip technology within its construction in the form of an RFID tag, enabling optional traceability throughout the whole fi sh supply chain.

* As calculated in an independent analysis carried out for Cool Blue Box by Robert Giddings BSc and William Davies BSc of the Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education, overseen by Professor Mike Dillon.