Peru and friends, here we come!

Our endeavour

Dear reader,

we are four students from Ghent University that will leave soon for the biggest adventure of our lives thus far! During the past academic year, we have been studying ways to make a sustainable chocolate packaging together with our partners (see below) and we tested a certain pathway (more about this later)! The goal of the packaging is to provide a suitable alternative to plastic while reducing the impact on the environment. Feel free to follow us more closely on our instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/humasol_tpsi_peru/

Partners

During the academic year we have mainly been in contact with three different partners. First of all, Niva Organica. Don Eli is the entrepreneur of this chocolate company that has its own chocolate brand and cacao plant (https://nivaorganica.com/). Their interest in sustainable packaging portrays their courage and hope to make the chocolate industry even more lovely.

Next up there’s TPSI (The Peruvian Social Incubator) that is the glue between Humasol and Niva Organica, leading the meetings, arranging logistics involved with the project and assuring clear communication between the partners (https://theperuviansocialincubator.com/).

Then there’s CITE Agroindustrial VRAEM, the third partner that has expertise in the agro-industry (also cacao) in Peru and thus is a great aid to the technical part of the project involved with the development of the chocolate packaging.

Only recently, we've been in contact with UNAS (Universidad Nacional Agraria de la Selva) that is located in Tingo Maria. We will work on the project in their labs in Tingo Maria. They have research involved with sustainable packaging, so it will be interesting to discuss the development of the method(s) with them.

The development of a sustainable chocolate packaging

There are numerous materials that can be used for sustainable packaging. We found out early on that a simple production with a low footprint is key for this project. This led us to paper covered with coatings that keep out water vapor (WV) and oxygen (O). During the year we performed some tests at Hasselt University concerning the O and WV transmission rates. We plan to use this info to optimize our coating combination and assess other properties of the packaging like mechanical stress, insect vulnerability and chocolate quality. Next to that we want to provide Niva Organica with a production unit to produce the packaging.

Location

Our project will take place in Tingo Maria, Peru. Peru is a huge country with strongly contrasting landscapes, like mountains, rough coasts and the Amazon rainforest. There are about 34 million people living in Peru. Tingo Maria is a popular destination for tourists with 46 191 inhabitants in 2017. It is a city on the Huallaga River in central Peru, set between Andean highlands and the Amazonian jungle. Here UNAS is situated where we will work together with our partners on the project.

We cannot wait to meet all our partners in real life and give the best we can for this project. If you’re just as excited as we are, you can follow the progress of the project via this blog if you are interested!

Greetzzz

Manou, Cara, María and Nicolaas