One of the main areas covered was the announcement of all the finalists in the 2011 Pro Carton ECMA carton awards and videos were shown of each category that gave details on all the finalists in each of the categories. The winners of these awards along with the carton of the year and the most innovative will be celebrated at the Pro Carton Congress in April that will be held in Dusseldorf. Full details on this Congress formed part of the Pro Carton display which also included all the recent publications and gave all attendees the opportunity to speak to Pro Carton about what they are doing now and in the future.

Pro Carton also sponsored the key note speaker on day 2 of the Congress. Sahar Hashemi described herself as a serial entrepreneur and told the Congress the story of the launch of Coffee Republic in the UK and how it grew to over 100 outlets. She explained how she had to learn as she went along and that part of the success was learning from the mistakes she made during the process. Attention to detail, listening, hard work and a determination to succeed even when things were not going well were, in her view, the keys to success.

One of the main events within the Congress was the official launch of the new ECMA good manufacturing practice for carton based food packaging. Presented by Arend-Jan Luten who chairs the technical committee of ECMA, this new management tool for carton makers gives practical advice on setting up systems for the prevention of migration, organoleptic changes and contamination related to cartonboard based food packaging. When carton makers have implemented these systems into their manufacturing process they will receive a compliance certificate from ECMA that will demonstrate that they have fully followed this new code.

In an excellent presentation, Jean Jacques Vandenheede from AC Nielsen Europe talked about the changes in the retail sector that were found in the regular surveys they undertake. He said that in 2008 their consumer confidence index had shown that consumers were uncertain but now in 2011 the survey was showing that they had great concerns on food prices, utility prices and the impact that this would have on their purchasing power. He said that 30% of total global growth would come from China, Brazil, Russia and India and that these dramatic shifts would impact across the globe. Across all retail he said that the share of the number one brand was between 30% and 40% with private label products taking between 17% and 43%. Therefore he felt that second and third brands were under threat more especially in the developing economies where private label was in its infancy. For example in Switzerland and UK over 40% of the food sector was in private label whereas in China it was only 1%. Globally private label products accounted for 15% and he said that the indications were that this would reach 20% by 2020.

A presentation of the new Global Protocol on Packaging Sustainability from Rudy Hagedorn gave the Congress detail of this new protocol developed by the Consumer Goods Forum that will help all those operating in the packaging chain to communicate and understand each other more effectively. Mats Norlander of Stora Enso gave the congress and update on the global trends in board supply and explained that new developments were being introduced all the time to build on the excellent sustainability characteristic of the carton board industry and he felt that as a result of these constant improvements, cartonboard and cartons had a solid future.

ECMA 2011 was a wide ranging and informative congress. Whilst there was focus to a large degree on food safety it was encouraging to see the successful work that has been done in this area and the new ECMA code of good manufacturing practice was endorsed by both François Chastellain from Nestlé and Rudy Hagedorn of the Consumer Goods Forum during a round table discussion on the topic.