Sustainability at Viking
At Viking Food Solutions, we are unequivocally committed to creating an organisation that has a positive impact on the environment and communities in which we live and work.
Over the past few years, we been actively striving to increase our environmental impact. It has become part of our core values to protect the world around us and be an industry leader in sustainability. To achieve this, we set aspirational, company-wide, sustainability goals that we audit Viking against annually.
As we are an importer and manufacturer of flexible packaging products, we can have a major impact on the environmental system. Plastic recycling – particularly for flexibles – is a recycling chokepoint in Australia as we lack the technology and infrastructure to recycle at scale.
At Viking, we are combating this by reviewing all our flexible packaging against design sustainability guidelines and optimising its environmental impact throughout its life cycle. Already, a majority – over 75% of product sold in the last year – has been certified as REDCycle™ approved. REDCycle™ is a circular economy system operating across Australia for flexible packaging.
We are working constantly on R&D to find even more sustainable packaging options for our customers, and to stay ahead of the curb as governmental and industry recycling regulations change.
Viking is also focussing on improving our internal, organisational sustainability. We are ensuring we conserve resources used, and that as much of our onsite waste as possible is diverted into recycling systems and away from landfill. This percentage has been ticking up year-on-year and is now at around 70%.
In an effort to lower our carbon footprint and increase our efficiency, Viking has increased our in-house printing and conversion capacities, allowing us to better control – and thus reduce – the carbon and emissions created by our packaging through its lifecycle.
Viking also strives to help our customers in their sustainability journey, by providing the most efficient and sustainability conscious solutions we can to them.
For one customer, by changing the film structure they used for their packaging, into a lighter weight, but still strong film alternative, we managed to cut their entire packaging tonnage by 25%.
For another client, we transferred their packaging to an entirely new solution – using a bone in bag to replace their use of a shrink bag, combined with bone guard wrapping. This not only reduced the total amount of packaging required, but also vastly increased their process efficiency and lowered their carbon footprint.
At Viking, we pride ourselves on creating well-rounded solutions like these for our customer. Packaging strategies that are not only more sustainable, but also more efficient and provide just as much protection for a customer’s product.
We believe environmental management goes hand in hand with producing great products and service – it’s an opportunity not a constraint.
In fact, we have consistently found operating in an environmentally responsible manner increases our company’s value – for employees, communities, and customers alike.
Equipping the food industry to grow with food processing and packaging solutions
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35 Shirley Way, Epping VIC 3076
9 Mcilwraith St, Wetherill Park NSW 2164
21 Hoyle Rd, Hope Valley WA 6165
27 Beal Street, Meadowbrook QLD 4131
7 Chadderton Bvd, Epping VIC 3076
22 Glassford Rd, Kewdale WA 6105
25 Hayton Road, Wigram, Christchurch 8042, NZ
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