Amcor Flexibles partners with UK charity to bring life-saving medicine to Sub-Sahara Africa
October 29, 2015
ColaLife co-founder, Simon Berry says: “One in ten children die before their fifth birthday from simple preventable causes like dehydration from diarrhoea.* Until now, relatively basic life-saving re-hydration medicines have not been readily available or affordable in Africa’s remotest villages.”
Commenting on the partnership, Simon Berry says: “Amcor has been a valued partner whose innovation credentials and specialist packaging knowledge are helping to improve health in the developing world. It is very reassuring to have such expertise behind us.”
The new Kit Yamoyo Flexi-pack (or ‘Kit of Life’ in many African languages) not only provides essential medicine, but also doubles as a clean measuring vessel for the water.
The team at ColaLife recognised that consumer goods were reaching these remote villages but basic medicines were not. To tap into the existing consumer goods supply chain required a package solution that was simple to use, affordable and robust enough to endure transportation.
Keith Gater of Amcor Flexibles’ Home & Personal Care Sales Team comments on the partnership with ColaLife: “The new pack had to be low cost and manually fillable, while being able to survive extreme environments and unconventional supply chains, retaining the hygiene of the product. For the consumer, the pack had to be intuitive, easy to open and operate as a measuring device.”
Simon adds: “Importantly the medicine will be affordable to those communities who need it, retailing at less than $1.00 US per pack with no subsidy. This ensures that the medicine will continue to be available to communities into the future, making the Kit Yamoyo a sustainable solution.”
Amcor lead product developer Peter Ettridge, who proposed to use Amcor Flexibles’ PushPop technology to make the Kit Yamoyo Flexi-pack, says: “Packaging plays a crucial role in tackling global challenges such as ensuring access to safe, effective health care. At Amcor we invest millions into research and development to find new packaging solutions that deliver positive social and environmental outcomes. It is fantastic that we have been able to share this knowledge with ColaLife to create Kit Yamoyo Flexi-pack.”
The Flexi-pack has earned recognition from senior packaging experts from many of the biggest household names in the UK retail and brand landscape. This September the ColaLife Flexi-pack was shortlisted for the UK Packaging Awards 2015 Resource Efficient Pack of the Year.
To help keep production costs down while the product is being established, Amcor Flexibles manufacturing sites in Ledbury, UK and Palmela, Portugal donated over 870,000 Kit Yamoyo Flexi-packs to ColaLife. Since then the Zambian government ordered 452,000 Kit Yamoyo Flexi-packs that are currently being distributed to rural communities through their public health system.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAl601BegO4
About Amcor
Amcor (ASX: AMC) applies art and science to create responsible packaging solutions that enhance the products people use in everyday life. With global leadership positions in flexibles and rigid plastics packaging, Amcor continually innovates to find new and better ways to protect essential products such as food, beverage, pharmaceutical, medical, personal and household goods. Headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, Amcor employs 28,000 people worldwide and has operations across 43 countries. For more information, visit www.amcor.com
Both Amcor Flexibles Ledbury in the UK and Amcor Flexibles Palmela in Portugal are primarily leading suppliers of packaging solutions for the Fresh Produce and Bakery markets. Our dedicated team of experienced food scientists tailor solutions that extend product shelf-life and increase consumer satisfaction. If you would like more information, please follow this link or contact produce@amcor.com.
About ColaLife
ColaLife is a small independent UK charity that uses the same principles and networks that Coca-Cola and other commodity producers use, to open up private sector supply chains for a new, easy-to-use, affordable anti-diarrhoea kit, containing oral rehydration salts (ORS) and zinc supplements. For more information, visit www.colalife.org/
For more information about the Flexi-pack go to:
http://www.amcor.com/about_us/innovation_tech/helping-a-child-reach-five/
Or watch a video of ColaLife’s visit to our Amcor Flexibles Ledbury manufacturing site:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAl601BegO4
- Levels and trends in Child Mortality. UNICEF (2013) http://www.childinfo.org/files/Child_Mortality_Report_2013.pdf https://www.amcor.com/CMSPages/GetFile.aspx?guid=fbac76ff-b2c4-4c93-b87a-04a7c91acefd
For further information: Amcor
Keith Gater
Sales - Home & Personal Care
M: +44 7800 881 692
Keith.Gater@amcor.com
Michael Sabelli
Communications Business Partner
M: +41 79 560 7359
Michael.Sabelli@amcor.com ColaLife
Simon and Jane Berry
Zambia
Tel: +260 9755 72175 UK
Tel: +44 7932 107109
act@colalife.org
