Norway Grants

Project: Let’s compostable ! – Automation of biscuits packaging processes with transition to compostable contact packaging and increase of productivity
Project Promoter name:: Delicia d.o.o., Štrped 59, 52420 Buzet, country: Croatia
Project cost: 373 152 eur
Grant amount: 222 000 eur
Case number: 2023/363966

The need:

As a small enterprise, we were constantly faced with a productivity issues: we are small enough to be flexible and to produce special products for small niche, but also not big enough to use high productive producing lines. Any growth in sales means more employees and higher costs which cannot be compensated by rise of prices of our products. We hesitate with development of some new products, especially organic cookies where labour cost per unit is the highest since packing is manual. Labour costs are also connected with our intention to replace plastic inside trays which are protecting cookie from breakage with compostable ones. Compostable trays are made of bagasse, they are heavier than existing polystyrene ones and much more firmly packed in the box. Therefore, it is hard to detach them manually. Weighing and dosing is currently done manually, while another problem is cooling of the baked cookies which is not fast enough.

Increasing productivity and implementing greener packaging solution is, of course, possible, but with more efficient equipment.

Our problem was where to place it. Existing production and storing space of 270sqm in total is too small. Our recent acquisition of new building of 600sqm gives us opportunity to solve above problems, by implementing efficient and modern equipment.

The response:

The plan has been made to equip our new production plant with equipment which can assure higher productivity for existing products, allows us to develop new ones, replace contact packages made of artificial material with compostable packaging and reduce energy and labour costs per product.

We will procure and implement energy efficient and technologically advanced equipment. The equipment consists of the following: planetary mixer, gas rotary oven, cooling chamber, cookie weighing and dosing line and cartoning line.

New equipment will ensure future growth and more automated production without affecting quality, while simultaneuosly enabling greener products.

Project activities:

• Procurement and implementation of equipment for increasing productivity, efficiency and possibility of using greener packgaging material
• Project revision
• Project management activities
• Publicity and visibility activity