The Cofresco Institute

Genesis

Three observations led to the creation of the Cofresco Institute:

• More than ever, consumers want and call for practical products, those that make life easier, reduce household chores and leave more time for the essential matters in life.
• Consumers are increasingly concerned with food safety, product tracking and refrigeration procedures. Furthermore, expectations regarding the preservation of food quality and flavour have increased.
• Research is highly advanced in professional channels dealing with food preservation, from the producer to the retailer. The «weak link» is in the household, where unskilled users handle foodstuffs on their own.

Consumers should be able to benefit from the most advanced research, the most promising inventions, wherever they might be developed: it is no longer appropriate to keep research away from them.

That is why the Cofresco Institute’s vocation was to promote research, for the consumer’s benefit.
 

Creation

The Cofresco Institute was founded in November 2001 by Cofresco Frischhalteprodukte GmbH & Co. KG, Europe’s leading name in household packaging. The Institute was dedicated to research, and more precisely to:

• Research aimed at improving the performance of domestic household packaging products in respect of foodstuff preservation and safety, taste preservation and environmental protection.
• Research into new properties and substances, as part of a quest for new products.
• Consumer expectations are immense in this area. Research which enables these expectations to be met plays a crucial role. The Cofresco Institute intends to encourage, promote, and fund it.

The Cofresco Institute was an organisation with international ambitions and wished to attract researchers and inventors from all over Europe.

Mission

The Institute’s role was to promote and stimulate research in the field of home food packaging through the promotion of innovation and the creation and coordination of a pan-European network of scientists.

Its activities consisted of:

• Sustaining research teams working on projects that are likely to lead to innovations in the field of household food packaging by means of the Cofresco Institute Research Prize.
• Forging partnerships with specialized research institutes.
• Supporting projects selected in the context of the «Research Prize» through appropriate funding, whether they have won the prize or not.
• Communicating with researchers on the subject of home food packaging.

Three main fields

At the Cofresco Institute, research on home food packaging focused on three main fields:

Health and safety
Home food packaging is in contact with the food it protects: health and safety issues are of fundamental importance.
For instance, for freezer bags made from polyethylene (PE) it is essential to control the migration values and sensory properties, determined by the materials and production processes used, in order to keep these well below legal limits.

Freshness and taste
In order to respond to concerns about healthy living and eating shared by European consumers, home food packaging needs to preserve freshness and taste.
Studies have proven the need for packaging with high barrier properties against water vapour, to keep salads and vegetables fresh. Depending on the particular case, the use of aluminium foil, cling film or fresh keeping bags is the answer to these demands.

Respect for the environment
Ecological criteria are defined in every product specification at Cofresco. Always with the same objective: to respect the environment more without over-complicating the lives of consumers. There is no better example in Cofresco’s product range than its biodegradable refuse bags.