Public Funding for Packaging Innovation Limited

This is a feasibility project intended to create enabling technology for a "virtual high-street". The proposal is for on-line ordering from multiple local an.d national businesses delivere.d with least road traffic via shared use of existmg Infrastructures (websites, order assembly, local delivery vans, empty packaging returned and re-used). The system will feature: (1) Multiple businesses delivering to same address in one trip: less traffic & more service innovation (2) Product customisation via on-line ordered/warehouse prepared not available in conventional retail (3) Avoidance of waste through re-useable packaging (empty packs returned through the system) (4) Significant scope for innovation in an industry sector where UK leads (retail management/logistics) The key is efficient logistics that minimise cost (and impact)- to give financial room to create more innovative products and services. The technical enabler is to extend logistics information to the "last mile" via RFID enabled primary and secondary pacakging. Project output will be: (1) Prototypes of technical enablers (RFID-enabled packaging and tracking/reading systems) (2) System specification based on consultation with all interested stakeholders (3) Business plan for regional trial as main follow-on project In view of the wide range of stakeholders involved this project is a feasibility stage only. It will make the consumer case (advantages and interaction with the system), financial/logistics case, environmental/social case (traffic, packaging waste), and build a consortium for a regional trial.

This project will provide the technical innovation to restructure large-scale and established supply chains for the purpose of significantly reducing emissions and packaging waste related to the distribution of raw materials, finished products and waste disposal from complex liquid products. The Feasibility project identified types of technical innovations for short, medium and long term implementation that could transform the supply chains of Unilever and ICI Paints and their associated environmental impact. Using an initial array of innovations including consumer driven in-store dispensing interfaces, regional factory miniaturisation and formulation compartmentalisation (capable of multiple product roll out) the project will then explore the possibility of radical product replacement and migration to service-based products with increasing capability to redraw emission and waste paradigms.