A challenging journey that we have to undertake together

Melissa Smeets works as Packaging Development Manager at our Research & Development Centre in Wageningen, the Netherlands. She is part of the sustainable packaging expertise team and is involved in many exciting projects.

“It is a challenging journey to reach our goal of making our packaging of 95% recyclable plastic in 2025. We can only achieve this by working together. Both internally and externally. Sales colleagues play an important role in this. They are the ones who have to sell those sustainable packaging materials. However, our production locations have to be able to process this sustainable packaging. We need everyone to reach our goal!”

“When I was studying Industrial Design Engineering, I discovered that I find it interesting to work on the entire process of packaging; from creation up to the implementation in a production location. In my job with FrieslandCampina I guide this whole process for various packaging types, such as big bags for Ingredients and trays for consumer products. I am a member of the “sustainable packaging” expertise team and I was involved in the development of our first sustainable cheese packaging. I tested with waste processing companies whether the packaging really is easy to sort and to recycle. I am immensely proud of this project and the result we achieved!”

Recyclable packaging for one country is not automatically sustainable packaging for another.

“In order to continue achieving our objectives, the packaging team will organise various workshops for colleagues all over the world. Here we will together with colleagues from other disciplines analyse the product portfolio for each country. Where does packaging go? What does this mean for recyclability? By answering these questions we will know for each market what is required for optimising packaging. Recyclable packaging for one country is not automatically sustainable packaging for another. We also study which packaging types have the largest impact and are therefore big rocks. In this way, we will set priorities for making the portfolio more sustainable.”