Modiform conducted extensive research in the recycling industry to find out which material should be used to produce bedding packs with the highest chance of being recycled. It highlighted that a change from black polystyrene to transparent green PET needed to be implemented.
To make that happen, Modiform would need to spread the knowledge, convince the market, design products, invest in mould alterations and produce and supply products — and it wanted to do all this in one year.
Modiform set up "Task Force Transparent Green PET", consisting of Modiform UK account managers Graham Clutterbuck, Mark Smith and Pete Wessel along with retail manager Shaun Herdsman. The task force spoke to large bedding plant pack growers around the country, informing them of its findings. Large retailers were visited to share information about the recycling challenge and told how Modiform could help.
Transparent Green PET became the main focus at each of the five large UK horticultural exhibitions. Presentations and public talks were given at events and industry meetings. Point-of-sale materials were provided for growers to educate their customers about the change while social media was deployed to get the message across to the public.
The task force was so successful that retailers and growers started to see Modiform not as a manufacturer of plant pots and bedding packs but as a source of knowledge about recycling and packaging. From August 2018, it was clear that Modiform had made a big impact when industry leaders started approaching the firm, rather than the other way round.
Growers and retailers now understood that they had to change their bedding packs from using black polystyrene to Transparent Green PET. Orders and product requests came flooding in. Six supermarkets, four DIY chains, seven garden centre groups and 16 growers now use Modiform’s Transparent Green PET as their only bedding pack offering.
The innovation has brought Modiform 30 new products and new sales of 30 million bedding packs, increasing turnover by 15% and potentially saving 2,000 tonnes of plastic waste going into landfill.
The success that the task force has generated, and how it was executed, has transformed the way the whole company operates, and Modiform now plans to roll-out the UK team’s shining example into other European countries.
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