Meet Michelle - Our Packaging Champion

I’ve worked in the food industry for a long time, and absolutely embrace how Second Nature is vital to my role as Packaging Technologist. Plastic reduction and looking at better packaging options for the environment are so critical to the impact we have as food producers.

One of the projects I’m most proud of is when we moved all the trays we use for Fresh Pork from PET/PE to Mono. This hadn’t been done on Fresh Pork before and meant spending a lot of time in production with tray, film and machine suppliers.

We ran many trials and came across so many issues in production but after a year we found the correct lidding film. We managed to move over to mono trays across both Preston and Riverside and can now class our trays as widely recycled. Doing this change also removed 44 tonnes of plastic from the business.

For others in the industry looking to make a similar impact, really look around your business - you’ll be amazed at the amount of plastic packaging you can reduce - and don't give up!

As Second Nature Coordinator for Preston and Riverside, I also plan events to get our colleagues involved and love reporting on the progress we’re making. This has created new teams who are all working together for a common purpose.