Raisio’s Elovena® drink packaging renewed – you can now recycle the whole packaging and cap as cardboard

Press release 15 March 2023

No one wants to see plastic litter in the environment, especially on the seashore. That includes us at Raisio. That is why we are among the first to manufacture drink cartons with caps that stay attached to them.

The EU’s new Single-use Plastics (SUP) Directive will require plastic caps to remain attached to the packaging in the future. This requirement for drink packaging will enter into force in July 2024, with the aim of reducing the accumulation of plastic caps in the environment. This is an important target, as around 80% of the litter found on EU beaches is plastic.

At Raisio, our packaging choices are guided by the quality and shelf life of the product, the recyclability of the packaging and the minimisation of the amount of plastic. Over the past year, we have put particular effort into implementing the worthwhile goals of the SUP Directive and have made changes in our production to be able to put the new caps on our drink products now, ahead of schedule.

As a result, all Elovena® products in one-litre and half-litre sizes already feature the new caps that stay attached during use. The new caps can be seen in products such as Elovena® Oat Drink Barista and Elovena® Oat Drink. During 2023, the new caps will be on the packaging of all our plant-based drinks and cooking products. These include Elovena® Snack Oat Drinks, for example.

Easy to use and recycle

The new packaging is convenient to use and easy to recycle, as the whole package, including the cap, can be recycled as cardboard.

“One of the objectives of our sustainability programme is to encourage consumers to recycle packaging. This is why our packaging always includes clear verbal instructions on how to recycle the packaging, in addition to the recycling labels,” says Raisio’s ESG Manager Katri Järvinen-Wilén.

The caps for our drink cartons are made from plant-based plastic, with sugar cane as the raw material. Sugar cane is a sensible choice because it grows much faster than Nordic forests, for example, and yields many times more per hectare. The sugar cane plantations are located in areas that are not suitable for food crops. The sugar cane plantations do not require felling and are not located in rainforest areas. For these reasons, sugar cane is considered to be a sustainable alternative as a raw material for polyethylene production. Plant-based materials behave in exactly the same way as fossil-based materials, but they are significantly more environmentally friendly and reduce the carbon footprint of packaging.

Enquiries:

Katri Järvinen-Wilén, ESG Manager, tel. +358 40 776 4314
Eriika Reiss, Category Manager, Elovena® Oat Drinks, tel. +358 44 306 8575

For more information on the EU’s Single-use Plastics Directive in Finnish, see the Ministry of the Environment’s website:

https://ym.fi/tiettyjen-muovituotteiden-ymparistovaikutusten-vahentamista-koskeva-direktiivi-ukk

RAISIO PLC
At Raisio, we make food from the heart, with the aim of bringing health to ourselves and the Earth. We keep creating better plant-based and heart-healthy products so that eating healthily and within the Earth’s ecological capacity can be a pleasure. Our strong brands, such as Benecol®, Härkis® and Elovena®, turn our ambitions into reality. Through our responsibility work, we make the hard choices for consumers, so that they can choose Raisio products with confidence. We have around 350 healthy food colleagues in six countries and export to more than 40 markets around the world. Raisio's shares are listed on Nasdaq Helsinki Ltd. In 2022, the Group’s comparable net sales for continuing operations were approximately EUR 221 million and the comparable EBIT was approximately EUR 18 million. www.raisio.com