Breakfast cereals resist move towards flexible packaging

All retail categories may be under pressure to reduce packaging volumes but, despite the availability of film and laminate alternatives, cartons seem to be retaining their share of the breakfast cereals market.

Mayr-Melnhof Cartons UK, a major supplier to the cereals sector, takes nothing for granted. "Packaging reduction is being debated in all the big retailers," said md Andreas Doerfler. In other categories, the shelf-ready packaging has brought with it some key shake-ups of primary packs. But most cereal aisles remain walls of cartonboard.

"The marketing and communications benefits are a major point in our favour," explained Doerfler. "But equally important is the environmental aspect. You have to look at the whole value chain. Our cartons are made from recycled waste paper and board, and they can go back to the same recycling stream."

With regard to lightweighting, converters consider that board weights have already been taken down as low as is practically possible.

Morning Foods, owner of the Mornflake brand, has recently put £150,000 into reviewing its bagging lines. It has also revamped the graphics on the block-bottom bags used for its crunchy cereal and oats products, said business account manager Richard Jones. Like Jordans, it uses a combination of flexibles and cartons for different lines.

Higher production speeds and lower materials costs make flexibles more cost-effective than cartons. Until now, this has helped segment the market. "A lot of retailers stock a basic cereal or cornflake product in a bag," said Jones. "I'm not sure they'd want to present higher-value lines in the same way."

Currently, Morning Foods has a 50/50 split in its product lines between cartons and bags. But Jones said: "We're going to be looking at increasing the number of lines in flexibles."