Saica Pack Amposta, a leading company in the manufacture of recycled corrugated cardboard, has developed a sustainable solution for Balfegó Grup, a leading company in the fishing and marketing of Mediterranean bluefin tuna, with the creative advice and sustainable management of our eco-design and circular metrics team and the coordination of the project by the Packaging Cluster.

The project arises from the detection of the need by Balfegó Grup to develop an innovative eco-designed box based on recycled and recyclable cardboard in the Saica Pack operational plant in Amposta (Tarragona) that is suitable for high-end frozen fish and that can replace the current boxes made of expanded polystyrene plastic (EPS).

This new eco-designed box will have to have high performance to meet the strict requirements of high-end fish logistics, such as maintaining temperatures below -21ºC during the entire transport and logistics phase of the frozen products.

Ecothermbox aims to replace fossil-based materials with renewable and recycled materials and to optimise the transport system through its foldable design. The environmental benefits of each of the life cycle phases have been validated by our metrics team through a CO2 quantification tool developed during the project.

In total 5 initial prototypes were created and tested in several pilot tests. The objective was to validate user experience, logistics, and environmental impact. In the end, a new eco-designed 100% recyclable box was achieved that reduces the carbon footprint by 23% and responds to a market need in which suppliers in the food, chemical, and other sectors demand viable sustainable packaging solutions for their products.

Ecothermbox is a market implementation project for new products or services funded by the Catalan Waste Agency in the call for grants for projects to promote the circular economy 2020.