PETpla.net Insider 11 / 2010

REGIONAL MARKET REPORTS 14 PET planet insider Vol. 11 No. 11/10 www.petpla.net March 29, 2010 Danone Research Danone Research – Packaging, a key in-house expertise for Danone Frédéric Jouin, Global Packaging Platform Director, Danone Reserach We met: Frederic Jouin , Global Packaging Platform Director, who is in charge of the entire R&D Packaging of the Danone Waters and Dairy Divisions. He came to Danone in 1997 after leaving Yves St. Lau- rent, where he developed packaging for perfumes. After 9 years in different positions in R&D Packaging for Danone Dairy Products, he moved to Product Development for Danone Dairy and was promoted in his today’s office in October 2009. ‘Bringing health through food to as many people as possible’, Danone R&D is commit- ted to Danone’s mission “Irrespective of age and irrespective of where in the world one lives, health is always intimately related to diet. Danone was born from that conviction now inscribed at the heart of its mission: ‘Bringing health through food to as many people as possible’. This ambition is largely based on the commitment and skills of the R&D teams. These skills are grouped in Danone Research, a worldwide organ- ization present in some fifteen countries, employing about 1200 personnel, and maintaining a network of almost 200 scientific cooperations worldwide. The dialogue between Danone researchers and out- side research teams, such as those of the universities and specialised private and public research organisations, gen- erates and enables the sharing of knowledge, advancing and comparing working hypotheses. The complementarity gives rise to high-level scientific cooperation on the com- pany’s strategic axis. Science is fundamental to the products created by Danone R&D. Science is placed in the service of consumers in order to build and maintain their health capital throughout their lives while offering accessibility to the greatest number and maintaining the pleasure of good food.The fields of expertise cover domains as varied as nutrition, human physiology, immunology, food engineering, microbiology, molecular biology, biochemistry, food safety, product devel- opment, sensory evaluation. Packaging is also an in-house expertise aiming at delivering the best pack in every hand, according to the Danone’s mission. The packaging experts of Danone Research are work- ing on three principal axes ensuring the safety and innocuousness of the packaging  with respect to the product contained, reducing the environmental impact of packaging, with  the aim of decreasing our carbon footprint by 30% by 2012, stimulating innovation projects in order to identify new  packaging solutions compatible with the sensory proper- ties of the product, health benefits and consumer expec- tations. The R&D Global Packaging Platform lead by Frédéric Jouin is made in two parts The part of it working for Danone Dairy is based in this  R&D center. The part dedicated to Danone Waters is located  in Evian in order to be close to a factory with key competencies on materials/polymers and technologies of ISBM & caps workshops including equipments for bottles and caps production and testing plus a training center. The team, in connection to the local R&D Pack teams located in the countries is in charge of the qualification of new materials, of the design of any new bottle or cap design and makes recommendations about supplier’s equipment, packaging formats – all under the banner: “Best pack in every hand.” The task of WW R&D Pack team is indeed enormous and ambitious, as Danone produces in 58 plants world wide with 80 filling lines, most of them integrated with blowing. The current sitation of machines used within the Danone Waters Factories around the world is spread as followed Husky & Netstal for injection moulding  Sidel, Sipa and Krones for blowing and filling  Sacmi and Krones for labelling.  250,000t of PET resin are converted globally each year, of which 100,000t of PET resin are converted in France (25,000t are from post-consumer, recycled material). Packaging strategy This worldwide R&D Pack organization is focussing on 3 main tasks: Ensure safety and quality of the products to all consumers.  Reduce significantly the carbon foot print of the Danone  products: Bring packaging innovations on the market visible for  consumers. Frédéric Jouin, emphasising the priorities of research in general: “Quantity is an issue, quality is a must.”