The Future of Consumer Packaging: Driving Sustainability with Machine Learning Partner Content -

Navigating packaging industry challenges

In today’s rapidly evolving consumer packaging industry, manufacturers face unprecedented challenges across multiple dimensions. The delicate balance between performance objectives, regulatory compliance, sustainability mandates, and supply chain volatility has created a complex landscape that traditional approaches struggle to navigate efficiently. As regulatory restrictions on chemicals like PFAS tighten and consumer demand for sustainable packaging grows, companies need innovative solutions that can accelerate their product development cycles while optimising for multiple competing variables.

AI: a game-changing technology

Artificial intelligence has emerged as a game-changing technology in this space, enabling companies to explore all options faster than ever before. Unlike traditional methods, where the number of time-consuming experiments scales exponentially with the number of options considered, AI can systematically evaluate millions of potential combinations to identify optimal solutions. This capability is transforming the ‘faster, better, cheaper’ paradigm, where conventional wisdom suggested only two of these objectives could be achieved simultaneously, into an achievable reality where all three become possible. As one senior R&D scientist noted, “With ML, there is now potential to get all three.”

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Multifaceted business benefits

The business benefits of AI-driven packaging innovation are substantial and multifaceted. Companies implementing these solutions are experiencing a 50-80% reduction in required experiments compared to traditional methods, dramatically accelerating time-to-market. This enhanced speed enables market acceleration, where new packaging solutions can be launched faster to gain a competitive advantage. Additionally, AI facilitates enhanced optimisation by balancing more objectives simultaneously and pushing performance boundaries. Perhaps most importantly in today’s volatile business environment, AI provides adaptive resilience, helping companies respond rapidly to new regulations, supply chain disruptions, and market shifts.

Real-world impact: a case study

A compelling case study demonstrates the real-world impact of these technologies. A global materials conglomerate needed to remove PFAS chemicals from their adhesives while maintaining mechanical performance, a complex reformulation challenge with numerous variables and constraints. By implementing an AI-driven approach using the Citrine Informatics platform, they screened millions of formulations in just three months, identifying 30 viable candidates and eventually discovering a breakthrough formulation. The result was saving two years of R&D work on a five-year project timeline, significantly accelerating their regulatory compliance while maintaining product performance.

Optimising multi-layer packaging

Multi-layer packaging is a prime application for AI-driven development. These complex structures combine various materials to achieve specific barrier, mechanical, and aesthetic properties. AI approaches excel at systematically navigating the inherent trade-offs often found in traditional development, allowing for optimal solutions across competing objectives, like recyclability and cost.

The Citrine Informatics Platform presents packaging experts with a ranked list of candidate materials, indicating their likelihood of success at hitting target properties. Trade-offs are visualised, and researchers can make strategic decisions about what to take to the lab.