Sustainability and Recyclability of Food Packaging

Ulrich Eicken is a Chemist and Managing Director of eicken safe cosmetics, which specialises in the area of cosmetics. After about 30 years in the cosmetics industry with development of formulations, with regulatory matters and compliance and a long time as a safety assessor, he now deals with safety assessments. He represented Mibelle in the CosPaTox consortium and was involved in the development of the guideline.

Martin Engelmann is a Lawyer and has been the Director General of the German Plastic Packaging Association since 2019. Before that, he has been the Director General of the German Paints and Printing Inks Industry Association and had leadership roles at PlasticsEurope and the German Chemical Industry Association (VCI).

Sébastien Foucart is a Food Processing Engineer and Head of Manufacturing Services & Packaging at Nestlé Nespresso in Vevey. He was previously Manufacturing Manager at Nescafé Dolce Gusto managing global manufacturing set up (5 factories, 50 lines) and industrialising new products and technologies to support long term strategy towards innovation and sustainability. Earlier he was Factory Manager at Nestlé Nespresso to start up of greenfield and state-of-the-art production & distribution center for Nestlé Nespresso. He is involved in international associations, e.g. in the International Association of Environmental Analytical Chemistry (IAEAC), Schweizerische Verpackungsinstitut-Joint Industry Group and FoodDrinkEurope.

Thomas Gude is Managing Director of Thomas Gude GmbH, which specialises in consulting in the areas of food contact materials, food and non-food. After about 30 years with authorities, the pharmaceutical and chemical industries and a long time as the operational manager of a Swiss laboratory, he now deals with risk assessments, especially in the food contact and consumer goods sector. In addition, he teaches at various universities and technical colleges, in particular at ETH Zurich.

Ralf Leineweber is a Chemist and joined Siegwerk in 1994. Today, as Head of Global Technology Development, he is responsible, amongst others, for activities relating to the circular economy and the recycling of packaging. This includes, for example, coordinating projects with partners along the entire value chain to improve the recyclability of packaging as well as participating in industry associations and standardisation committees.

Fabian Lüth is a Polymer Chemist and is focussing on Polymer Recycling and Product Development at Vogt-Plastic, Germany, since 2015. In his function he is responsible for the development of recycled polymers for contact sensitive packaging applications. Since 2020 he has been a Representative of the Technical Committee Polystyrene at RecyClass. In 2024 he joined the Steering Committee at Forum Rezyklat.

Thomas Simat has been a Professor and the Chair of Food Science and FCM at the Technische Universität Dresden with research on FCM since 2003. He is the Chairman of the ‘German BfR Committee on Consumer Products’’.

Daniel Teicher is an Engineer Packaging Technology and since 2021 he has been working as Head of Packaging Development at Mibelle Group with focus on transforming the current packaging portfolio towards a leading sustainable and attracting product packaging, together with his team and partners in the value chain. He has more than 20 years of experience in the packaging sector in different industries, such as food, power tools accessories and chemistry.

Mike Turner is the Managing Director of the European Carton Makers Association (ECMA). He is also Chairman of Fibre Packaging Europe. Since 2020, he has represented packaging converters on the 4evergreen cross-industry alliance. Mike joined ECMA in 2019 from Graphic Packaging International, where he served as Managing Director of their EMEA Foodservice Packaging business. Prior to that, he spent 15 years with International Paper and prior to that, he spent 10 years with M-Real, a Scandinavian paper mill and merchant group. Mike has also served 4 years as President and Chairman of the Brussels based ‘Pack2Go’ representing manufacturers of packaging for food & beverages ‘to go’.

Manica Ulcnik-Krump is a Chemist and the Managing Director of Interzero Plastics Innnovations. As Head of R&D she is responsible for the technical development of recycled plastics produced by mechanical recycling for the recycling company Interzero Holding. She is a plastic material modification specialist and her current development focus is on the modification of post consumer plastic waste for high-quality mechanical recycling, the evaluation of the recyclability of packaging, the development of methods for analysing the highly concentrated feedstock for chemical recycling and many other areas that are in some way related to the recycling of post-consumer plastic waste.