Extrupet retains BRC accreditation

The certification means that the post-consumer recycled plastic from its state-of-the-art food-grade recycling plants meet the UK's stringent food safety standards and may be used in fruit punnets and drinking bottles by Britain's top retailers such as Sainsbury, Tesco and Marks and Spencer.

"Packaging made with food-grade recycled PET, or rPET, is ecologically sound and technologically advanced, with absolutely no compromise on food safety," says Chandru Wadhwani, executive director of Extrupet.

Its food-grade rPET products, produced on the Vacurema system, have also received a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) certification of non-objection. This means that under US regulation, the product is of a standard high enough to be allowed back into US food packaging.

Its application for the BRC certification was supported by South African retailer Woolworths (licensees of Marks & Spencer), which wanted to use food-grade rPET in its food packaging, but lacked a local certification to ensure the quality of the product.

"Because the South African Food and Cosmetics Act contains no specific regulations governing the reuse of polymers for food packaging, we are judged by the same rules as those for virgin packaging," says Wadhwani.