WPO Vice-President and LibanPack director Soha Atallah understands the difficult balance between safe and sustainable packaging but is sure a solution can be found with investment and awareness
Already a major player in the Lebanese food industry and an international packaging expert, Soha Atallah wanted to help such businesses overcome obstacles to export and grow internationally. Thus LibanPack – the Lebanese Packaging Centre – was born, to harness the potential of packaging and boost the potential of local companies.
As company director, as well as WPO Vice-President and WorldStar Coordinator, in an exclusive interview with Packaging MEA, Atallah explains how LibanPack came to be, and what role it is playing in efforts to achieve optimal results in packaging design and in sustainability.
“I started my career as a UNDP trade officer at the Ministry of Economy and Trade in Lebanon,” She says, “to support Lebanese food industries to ensure compliance with TBT (technical barriers to trade) and increase their exports.
“Packaging and labelling regulations were among the TBTs hindering exports to certain countries. Therefore I decided with UNIDO [United Nations Industrial Development Organisation ), where I was working as a National Project Coordinator, and the Association for Lebanese Industries, to establish LibanPack, to increase the competitiveness of Lebanese products with better packaging and labelling.
“Now, LibanPack serves as a center of packaging excellence throughout the Arab world,”, adds Atallah. “We have supported other countries such as Jordan to establish their own packaging center.
“Our role is to increase awareness of the importance of packaging as a marketing tool and as a functional tool, and other important aspects such as sustainable packaging. We provide training to many Arab countries. I recently travelled to Oman to provide training on sustainable innovation.
“LibanPack also organises Arab StarPack, the packaging competition endorsed by WPO to encourage university students to design packaging for local products. Around 1,000 students from 13 Arab countries participated in the last StarPack. It has been running for 11 years now.”
This worthy initiative is a perfect example of Atallah’s undeniable enthusiasm for the packaging industry in the MEA region.
“The packaging industry in the Arab world is growing in importance, especially with regard to the increased awareness of sustainability,” she say.
“More and more Arab countries are joining the WPO every year. So far we have Lebanon, Tunisia, Jordan, Morocco, Iraq , Palestine and Saudi Arabia, with Egypt, Oman and the UAE pending. More Arab countries are also investing in recycled packaging, mainly in paper and plastic.”
Packaging, like virtually every other sector, has seen massive changes amid the coronavirus pandemic. Atallah says the key to success as we – hopefully – emerge from the crisis lies in identifying the trends that have emerged and embracing the opportunities such change creates,
“These trends are here to stay, especially as some of them started before the pandemic,” he says, “such as the strong demand for sustainable packaging. Consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable packaging.
“Other trends are for eCommerce, smart packaging and hygienic packaging. These trends will remain as many consumers now prefer to shop online. Packaging should adapt to these new trends and make the consumer experience more convenient.”
In such discussions about packing’s potential in MEA, usually, comparisons are made with more established regions such as Europe and North America. Clearly, there is some catching up to do, but Atallah believes we are on the right track, and that investing in the future is key.
“I am trying to convince universities around the Middle East to open a BA or even MA in packaging, such as is the case in Europe. Some universities are responding, as the importance of packaging specialists as part of the supply chain in most industries has been proven.”
Food waste, sustainability and downgauging are three challenges faced by the world, and Mr Atallah believes packaging can play a vital role in addressing them.
“The most important role of packaging is to protect the product from external hazards, which in the case of food products helps avoid food waste,” he says.
“We talk a lot about reducing packaging materials and using a lot of recycled and biodegradable materials, which I strongly advise, but let’s not forget our objective is to go for the optimal packaging design, because if we reduce packaging materials too much, to follow the trend for downgauging, then we risk affecting the primary role of packaging. This can lead to food waste and then cause negative environmental impacts.
“On the other hand, over-packaging adds more waste and causes negative environmental impacts as well.
“That is why we always stress the importance of having a packaging specialist to design your product, to take all these challenges into consideration and to go for an optimal design.
“Consumer trends sometimes conflict with each other,” Mr Atallah continues. “For example, consumers tend to put high importance on hygiene and to ensure no one has used their products before them. This puts pressure on brands to have an extra lid or layer of packaging.
“Look at Coca-Cola when it launched a new lid for its aluminium can in the Middle East. This innovation was criticised by some as adding unnecessary packaging.
“Another conflicting trend is small packaging, or what we call ‘snack packaging’, so consumers can use their products on the go. This also goes against the trend for sustainability and having less packaging. So, designers have to be smart.”
Still, the WPO is actively encouraging the adoption of a circular economy across the packaging value chain.
“WPO is working non-stop through its international network to increase awareness of the need to shift into a circular economy,” says Atallah. “We are doing so by organising many training programs around the globe for the young and focusing on educating the youth on this important topic. To that end, within WorldStar we have a special category for sustainable packaging, which this year attracted 116 entries.”
Any discussion of sustainability will inevitably touch upon the debate surrounding plastics. Plastic packaging is often portrayed as the villain when talking about environmental concerns, but Atallah insists the problem lies not with plastic as a material, but with how we do (or don’t) recycle it,
“The problem is with the lack of a recycling infrastructure and the lack of a waste sorting system,” he says. “This is what’s leading to plastic being thrown away into oceans and natural environments.
“The problem is with our culture. Who is throwing plastic away in nature? Humans. We need education and awareness to discourage littering and encourage sorting.
“The push [towards sustainability] is already coming from the consumers’ side, and even governments are taking more and more action toward issuing regulations for sustainable packaging. What is needed from governments is to promote investment in the recycling industry for the production of recycled packaging materials.”
“Plastic by itself has many advantages, especially with regard to food safety and avoiding food waste by expending the shelf life of food products with its barrier functions that are not available in other packaging materials. Furthermore, much innovation is taking place in the use of recycled plastic material and the use of bio-gradable plastic.
“Let’s be realistic – we cannot use paper only to pack all our products, especially liquids. We should look to a holistic approach and not only follow the media that is directing consumer’s perceptions on packaging.
Overall, despite the ongoing challenges of the pandemic, these recent trends – albeit with some of them contrasting and conflicting with each other – show the packaging industry is on the up.
“The greatest opportunity for the packaging industry is Integrating technology into business in a way that reflects market and consumer needs,” Atallah says. “This shows the need to invest more in smart packaging.
“My message to the regional packaging industry and especially after concluding my WPO mission to explore Dubai Expo 2020, is: We need to join our forces as a regional and international packaging community to keep on raising awareness on the importance of sustainable packaging as a tool for adding value to products and more important as a tool to avoid waste.
“I was sad to notice that packaging is being highlighted in the sustainability pavilion at Dubai expo as a source of waste and as the main contributor to world pollution, by showing pictures and videos on packaging waste in our oceans and landfills.
“However, as explained above, the real problem is coming from humans who are not educated enough to know not to throw their waste away in our natural environment rather than finding means to sort waste and recycle it.
“Therefore, our mission as a packaging community should be to change this perception [of plastic] and to invest in raising awareness through the media on avoiding littering, encouraging waste management sorting and investing in the recycling industry.”