| “Last year, we changed NESCAFÉ PROTECT PROSLIM’s secondary packaging to paper, the first time NESCAFÉ used this type of packaging anywhere in the world. This year, to improve plastic packaging for coffee lovers who also love the planet, we have taken on the major challenge of making NESCAFÉ sachets more easily recyclable. Normal coffee sachets use a variety of materials to preserve the quality of the coffee they contain, which makes these sachets difficult to recycle.” To address this challenge, Nestlé Thailand’s packaging development team implemented a project to develop green packaging. Working together with leading film laminate manufacturers, and research and engineering teams from Nestlé Switzerland and Singapore, they developed more than 20 packaging prototypes over a two-year period. The successful result was the world’s first monostructure plastic sachet for NESCAFÉ PROTECT PROSLIM, introduced around the middle of this year, that retains the taste, smell, and freshness of the packaged coffee while being fully designed for recycling. “We are gradually introducing this monostructure packaging innovation across the entire NESCAFÉ BLEND & BREW product portfolio by Q1 2021, starting with the 25% Less Sugar and No Sugar variants. Thai people can be proud of this packaging innovation, as the concept was developed here, and Thailand is the first country where it was introduced. The monostructure sachet will eventually be tested in and expand to other Nestlé markets worldwide,” she said. As for NESCAFÉ’s other coffee product categories, Ms. Naritta added, “For our ready-to-drink canned coffee, NESCAFÉ is one of the first brands in the Thai market to switch entirely to 100% recycled aluminum cans by this October. Last year, we started by switching two variants to aluminum cans, which were Latte and Black Ice, and most recently switched Espresso Roast.” Nurturing Stronger Bonds by Going GreenFor the strategy going forward, Ms. Naritta said, “NESCAFÉ has a roadmap to add value to our product packaging through upcycling, which maximizes the use of plastic. Therefore, this year’s NESCAFÉ Day campaign invites coffee lovers across Thailand to connect under the theme “Nurturing Stronger Bonds, Brewing It Forward.” The NESCAFÉ Day campaign is using more than 100 million NESCAFÉ BLEND & BREW sachets that coffee lovers sent in to participate in various lucky draw campaigns over the past year. These sachets have been upcycled into eco-friendly materials such as wood-plastic composites (WPCs) that were used to make dining tables for 100 schools across the country, as well as eco-furniture for the two latest NESCAFÉ Hubs at BTS Phloen Chit and BTS Mo Chit, followed by the five existing locations, which are BTS Chit Lom, BTS Ari, BTS Victory Monument, BTS Sala Daeng, and BTS Chong Nonsi. The eco-friendly materials made from NESCAFÉ BLEND & BREW sachets will also be used at the NESCAFÉ Street Café, which will be set up as a prototype for additional locations in the future. To leverage its green packaging, NESCAFÉ RTD initiated a contest to create new items made from used aluminum cans, which led to a collaboration with a lecturer at Rayong Polytechnic College to create a robot prototype built from used aluminum cans that offers samples of drinks and lets people order menu items by voice. It demonstrates how waste can be transformed into innovations that benefit society. The project will run from this October onwards. “We hope that this announcement of our commitment to sustainability will inspire more Thai people to switch to green packaging, which will help to create a Thai society that is waste-free in the future,” said Ms. Naritta. She concluded by describing another special NESCAFÉ Day campaign for this year, which is the launch of Red Pillar 2020, a concept based on the brand’s core idea of nurturing stronger bonds. It encourages a new level of engagement under the theme “Endless Bonding Equation” to reinforce that NESCAFÉ has been the number one coffee brand in the hearts of Thai people for more than 47 years by bringing together eight brand ambassadors and leading Thai actors and actresses. They are also featured in a new Web film that will debut on NESCAFÉ’s Facebook and YouTube channels on October 1. |
