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Interview with HAVI

Ahead of the upcoming Food Contact Asia conference, we caught up with Linda Zhu, Senior Manager, Quality Systems and Compliance at HAVI. She gave us a sneak peek of what we can expect from her presentation on day two, taking place during our 'Case Studies of FCM in Different Applications on Compliance/Sustainability' session.


Current Industry Focus:

Q. As consumers/end users continually push for more sustainable/greener/safer solutions, what do you think is the biggest concern regarding food contact materials/packaging?
The biggest challenges is how to balance the consumer expectations on sustainable/greener/safer solution and the actual situation on functionality challenge/maturity of new technologies (capability and capacity)/cost. 

Q. What are some of the biggest opportunities gaining attention within the food contact field? How has your company chosen to react/adapt to stay on trend?
1) New technical developments are still biggest opportunities within the food contact field, such as affordable, food safety and biodegradable and/or recyclable materials or dispersion on paper.
2) Food safety and regulation on recycled materials for food contact packaging. 
3) Ideas on minimize the use of packaging, etc. 
Our company has been working with suppliers closely on sustainable and food safety packaging to fulfill our customer’s expectation. 

Future Focus:

Q. What industry topics are getting the most attention at this time? How are these factors influencing the future of food contact packaging/materials?
Greener packaging is getting the most attention since the plastic bans rolls out by many countries, especially China, some of the disposable nondegradable plastic items will be banned since end of this year. The focus on greener and safety food contact packaging and material will be new normal for food contact packaging/material sourcing in the future. 

Q. What does your company/organization hope to achieve over the next 5 years with regards to the future of food contact packaging/materials industry?
To support our valuable customer to achieve their goal on food contact packaging/materials:
-    By 2025, 100% of guest packaging will come from renewable, recycled or certified source.
-    By 2025, recycle guest packaging at all McDonald’s restaurants. 

Q. What opportunities are there for harmonization of food contact regulations in the Asia Pacific region?
China and Japan are taking the leading on the FCM regulations in Asia, especially China has quite comprehensive FCM regulation system,  and the rest of countries either do not have specific FCM regulation or not comprehensive, if the rest countries can recognize the compliance of China or even Japan’s regulation, that would be beneficial to the industry.  

Conference Related:

Q. Your presentation at this year’s Food Contact Asia will cover Food safety, compliance and sustainability of paper food contact packaging. Why is it important for others in your industry to hear this message? What are some of the key take-aways?
Key take-away:
  • How QSR industry manage the food safety, compliance and sustainability of paper food contact packaging
  • Some insights on the trends of the focus and interesting of the QSR industry to food contact materials/packaging. 
Q. Which presentations (what session topic) are you most looking forward to hearing about at Food Contact Asia?  
  • FCMs’ NIAS compliance in China 
  • FCM and circular economy: recent regulatory development in China, EU and US. 
  • Declaration of Compliance 
  • the industry case study sharing