Becoming eco-conscious: Q and A
Anne-Sophie Belamine, European sales director at TEQ, spoke to MPN editor Laura Hughes about how the organisation has incorporated sustainable practices.
Who are TEQ?
TEQ manufactures innovative thermoformed packaging, and the company develops products for a range of markets, including consumer, component handling and medical from its ISO- and BRC-certified production facilities in the UK and central Europe, which includes cleanroom facilities.
Established in 1979, TEQ has more than four decades of experience in the design and manufacture of innovative thermoformed packaging and has worked with multiple companies from across the sectors.
TEQ, which was recently acquired by Sonoco, has rebranded its business having previously been known as Plastique across Europe, and TEQ Thermoform Engineered Quality more widely.
As well as its two sites in Europe, TEQ operates three thermoforming facilities as well as one extrusion operation in the United States. The company also produces recyclable, moulded-pulp-fibre packaging under the Fibrepak brand.
How important is sustainability to the organisation?
TEQ is committed to incorporating sustainability into our overall business strategy, and helping customers achieve their environmental goals.
Sustainability underpins our thinking in everything that we do – both the products that we design and manufacture, and the way we run our operations. We create products with an environmental conscience, products of minimal size and weight, but which deliver superb quality. We are constantly developing innovative solutions that provide sustainability benefits for our customers.
What sustainable plastic options does TEQ offer for cleanrooms?
TEQ delivers a range of medical packaging solutions that are produced in cleanrooms based in both the UK and Poland. Designed, built and commissioned by pharmaceutical cleanroom experts, the facilities are certified to ISO 13485:2016, suitable for the production of precision-made and custom thermoformed medical packaging.
The cleanrooms, which are located in Nottingham and Poznan, are designed to meet medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturers’ most rigorous packaging requirements. The two sites are fully certified to meet the BRC IoP Global Standard which sets strict criteria for manufacturers of packaging for the food and cosmetics industries.
Our packaging solutions include trays, procedure sets, clamshells, tubs, covers, lids, sterile barrier blisters and seal blisters. We also manufacture custom thermoformed handling trays suitable for high-speed production, with automated assembly and transit. Handling tray solutions include auto-injectors, dry powder inhalers, injection-moulded components, pre-filled syringes and pharmaceutical bottles.
The task of improving the recyclability of plastic products within healthcare is an enormous one. Our TEQethylene Sterile Barrier System (SBS) uses a new, proprietary blend of HDPE in combination with Tyvek, a breathable HDPE thermoplastic lidding material, for a complete SBS solution backed by data that can help customers meet the requirements of ISO 11607-1 for stability or dating claim verification.
Are these sustainable options available worldwide?
Having both a North American and European presence enables TEQ to offer supply opportunities to both European and multinational medical device and pharmaceutical customers.
Finally, how difficult is it to enforce more sustainable materials and practices into environments such as cleanrooms?
Our facilities enable us to manufacture innovative thermoformed solutions, such as sterile barrier packaging, engineered to maximise revenue, reduce cost, and increase our speed to market.
Now, with identical machinery and tooling on both sides of the Atlantic, TEQ can offer multinational customers shortened lead times, repeatability and uniformity together with a single global validation across a range of packaging solutions for the medical and pharmaceutical industries.
With 40 years’ experience working with many well-known brand owners, we’re proud to be able to offer our customers a range of custom-made solutions, developed in our cleanrooms in the UK, Poland and the US.