The intelligent partnership between United Caps and Mimica resulted in the closure of perishable products and beverages such as milk and juices.
Luxembourg-based cap and closure manufacturer, United Caps, has announced the development of a new closure thanks to its exclusive partnership with UK-based label developer, Mimica.
The Mimica Touchcap concept was born from a design project led by the founder of Mimica, Solveiga Paktait, who wanted the expiry dates to include the visually impaired.
At the same time, Paktait combined deadlines and food waste. Food waste accounts for 10% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, and in developed countries, food waste is mostly generated in homes.
This can happen when food is not stored at the right temperature, but a significant part is related to consumers’ not using food efficiently or not knowing when food is still good.
Mimica’s technology aims to provide real-time information about the condition of food while also being accessible to the visually impaired and cognitively impaired.
Mimica Touchcap contains a gel that never comes into contact with the product. Although the closure is smooth when the product is fresh, the gel changes texture from smooth to bumpy when the product is no longer fresh.
United Caps and Mimica have jointly developed a fully recyclable cap that does not affect the recyclability of bottles. The cap—which consists of a lower and upper cap—is from United Caps, an activator and gel invented by Mimica. The closure also includes a dimpled tray and a top foil label—which is the part that becomes a dimple when food spoils.
For United Caps, innovation coincides with sustainability and ROI for the brands that adopt it. “If just two days of shelf life could be added to food, retail waste could be reduced by 50% and household waste could be reduced by 63%,” said Benoit Henckels, CEO of United Caps.
“Brands using this technology can increase sales by at least 10%, including the willingness of consumers to buy larger packages of products, such as orange juice, without worrying about spoilage before full consumption.”
Beverage waste often reduces the likelihood of consumers repurchasing the product or the frequency of purchases. According to the United Caps survey, two-thirds of consumers said they would buy larger bottles of juice if they could do it before the deadline.
A pilot project with an orange juice brand is currently underway in the UK. This pilot study and other United Caps studies determined that 121 million kilograms of juice are wasted each year in the UK alone, and Mimica Touchcap has a waste reduction potential of 12%, which equates to 53 million kilograms of juice every year.
