PACKAGING
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F ounded in 2000 and headquartered in Amsterdam , Avantium is an innovative chemtech company dedicated to supplanting the dominant presence of fossil fuels in chemicals and materials with renewable , plant-based alternatives . Joining the company in 2002 after previously working in the chemical industry at Dutch multinational DSM , Tom van Aken became the CEO in 2005 and has been working on making plant-based plastics viable ever since .
Recognising that global trends were starting to shift towards increased sustainability across all aspects of business , Avantium saw the ecological potential that weaning industries off of petroleum-based plastics could achieve . However , there was some initial scepticism that such a move was worth making . “ People previously thought that the best plastics could only be made from petroleum and that , if you made something from plants , then it ’ s probably inferior ,” says van Aken . “ I think it ’ s the other way around : PEF is the superior packaging material compared to conventional plastics .”
PEF , or Polyethylene Furanoate , is a 100 % bio-based polymer and could represent a revolution in drinks packaging . Starting from fructose derived from sources such as corn , sugar cane or sugar beet , the syrup undergoes a chemical catalytic process to produce a
MARCH 2020