New Icelandic salmon farm introduces PPS’s reusable boxes to minimise packing cost – Fishupdate.com

PPS East of Grimsby have announced that they have secured business from a new Icelandic salmon farm which has decided to transport whole salmon to the UK for processing in PPS’s 25kg plastic reusable boxes.

From an office and warehousing facilities in Reykjavik, PPS East has been supplying and managing plastic reusable fresh fish boxes, tubs and pallets to Icelandic fish producers and exporters for the past two years and the company sees this business gain as a very positive step forward.

In acquiring a totally new customer, this has not only expanded its Icelandic business, but also shows other salmon companies that there is alternative packaging solution compared to traditional expanded polystyrene boxes. Fresh fish producers pack fillets and loins into 15kg sized boxes for delivery back to the UK, where PPS East retrieve the boxes for hygienic washing at their BRC accredited site in Grimsby.

In order to secure the new business, PPS East and the customer set up an initial box trial, so that salmon on arrival in the UK was inspected for quality, temperature and ice coverage.

The results were successful with reports showing that the protection, quality,  temperature and freshness of the salmon on arrival at the fish processor was equal, if not better than the salmon delivered in the ‘single-use’ poly boxes. Therefore, PPS boxes were introduced into the supply chain for other salmon deliveries.

This new Icelandic salmon supplier has acknowledged and seen the benefits of using reusable boxes. Apart from protecting and retaining freshness of the product, there has been a good cost saving for their business by using the reusable boxes as they cost less per use than the original expanded polystyrene units.

The comprehensive rental package is costed to ensure sufficient plastic reusable boxes are available to support the supply chain loop, including boxes delivered to Iceland, boxes collected from the salmon processors in the UK and hygienic washing, swab testing and shrink wrapping before re-use. There is no packaging waste and this contributes to reducing the carbon footprint of the company.

The design of the reusable box offers additional benefits as when empty, they can nest inside each other so that more boxes can be delivered and stored, saving much needed transport and factory space. Also, PPS reusable boxes are slightly shorter in height than polystyrene boxes, so when full of fresh salmon, extra boxes can be stacked per pallet, thus increasing the product capacity per vehicle.