UN World Food Programme and Amcor continue fight against world hunger

The UN’s 2018 ‘Food Security and Nutrition in the World’ report shows the need for nutritious food continues to be a serious issue, limiting our global wellbeing and development. Innovation is needed to help growing numbers of people access safe, nutritious food around the globe, and partnerships between UN agencies and the private sector are increasingly crucial.

Combined efforts towards change

Last year, to mark World Food Day, we showcased Amcor’s partnership with WFP, demonstrating how our packaging expertise is helping to reduce food loss and deliver more produce to those who need it most.

This partnership has grown stronger throughout 2018. Between 2015 and the end of our 2018 financial-year, Amcor’s packaging expertise and assistance has helped WFP to save over US$5 million and feed an additional 99,200 children. Together, we’ve focused on commodities that are of greatest value to WFP beneficiaries: vegetable oil, Lipid Nutrient Supplement for children, and high-energy biscuits.

As WFP’s sole packaging partner, in the last two years Amcor has also:

• Reduced packaging waste by over 430 tons.
• Prevented 962 tons of food from being lost.
• Supported 18 country offices and three regional bureaus in Asia and Africa.
• Engaged USAID, a WFP public sector partner, and 14 other strategic suppliers in packaging improvement processes.

“As we work toward achieving ‘Zero Hunger’, our partnership with Amcor is enhancing the effectiveness of WFP operations. It’s one of our most strategically important collaborations with the private sector. Starting in 2016, when an Amcor-funded packaging expert was hired by WFP, to today, Amcor-improved WFP packaging has directly or indirectly positively affected over 18 million people.” UN World Food Program

Greater packaging innovation to come

While we are proud of the progress we’ve made with WFP during this two-year partnership, the Agency’s food safety and quality challenges are set within a context of increasingly complex and protracted world humanitarian needs. There is room – and urgent need – for more packaging innovation.

In pursuit of this, Dennis Kittel, an Amcor packaging engineer, and WFP packaging expert, Thibault Mirieu joined forces to develop solutions to the WFP’s vegetable-oil distribution challenges. A staple of WFP food-aid distribution, vegetable oil is packaged in high-density polyethylene jerrycans, bottles, or metal containers, and is transported along challenging supply chains. The journey, over bumpy roads and through extreme temperatures, can cause damage and leakage.

Dennis Kittel, an Amcor packaging engineer, and WFP packaging expert, Thibault Mirieu

The pair travelled to Africa to witness the supply chain first-hand. Their research resulted in improvements to container specifications and material formulations. The first molds for the improved container design will be integrated in FY19. As the new containers are filled and shipped, Amcor will continue working with WFP, maintaining a watch on the performance of the new packaging and documenting the impact on packaging failures.

A focus on sustainability

Amcor’s pledge to develop all packaging to be recyclable or reusable by 2025 will also benefit WFP. Our experts are working to estimate the total amount of packaging generated through WFP operations and determine how to better recover and recycle it at the point of, and after, distribution to beneficiaries.

Making your mark

Quality plastic packaging assures the safe distribution of thousands of products, including those destined for people surviving the most difficult of circumstances. We are proud to support the WFP, and through our partnership we see that more support is needed to turn the tide of hunger.

Partnership is harnessing the innovation of industry to the benefit of millions of people, worldwide.

You can join the fight against world hunger today:
Donate to the World Food Programme
Find out how to become a WFP partner