The K-Fair for Plastics and Rubber, which takes place every three years in Düsseldorf (Germany), has a date set for October 2022. Nanox has exhibited at the fair every time it has had the opportunity since 2013, and has its presence confirmed for this year's edition.
There, we created several contacts and even developed partnerships that last until today. A great example of this is the partnership between Alpes and Nanox. In celebration of the fair and the union between the two companies, Nanox talked to Alpes' Foreign Trade and Marketing Director, Alessandra Zambaldi.
**Alessandra Zambaldi graduated in Chemical Engineering at IMT (Instituto Mauá de Tecnologia). Working at Alpes since 1995, she has been ahead of all the innovations the company has had, and it was with her that we, from Nanox, had our first contact, creating a lasting bond between the companies until today.**
1) Alessandra, how was the meeting between Nanox and Alpes at the 2016 K Fair?
Every time we go to the K Fair, we have the intention of always searching for something new in the segment, this is always Alpes' idea, to take the differential to the final client.
My brother and I were walking around the K Fair, looking for new plasticizers or another use. We already had our eye on bactericide and fungicide applications from companies coming from Spain, but they were still embryonic studies. While we were walking we saw the Nanox booth, and my brother said "Wow, that's #Brazil", and there we went to talk to the representatives, in this case, the founders of Nanox, #Gustavo and #Daniel.
We had never really heard of Nanox in Brazil, but when we talked to them to understand how the bactericide worked, how was the issue for the action in food, ask about the necessary legislations, we realized that it could be a fruitful partnership for both sides and it was then that, when we returned to Brazil, we really started the conversations.
2) How is the partnership between the two companies going?
The partnership with the company is great! However, we have communication difficulties with our customer, because the things we talk about are concrete but not with the naked eye, this makes it very difficult to convince the customer to use it. 100% of our household line has #Nanox application. Whoever buys our domestic and semi-professional line has the product with the antimicrobial action.
We have a client, for example, who makes handmade fritters, who has his own brand and sells in supermarkets. This client made sure to print the antibacterial seal and paste it on all packaging. The differential for this customer is that it is better protected, retaining more freshness and flavor, because it has gained more shelf life.
We are now in a project, trying to take it to the supermarkets that could not see this, that do not take stock of the (percentage of food) that is lost. We are trying to work with a supermarket, which is already our client, observing the publication of Ordinance No. 458 that waives the requirement of indicating the expiration date on packaged fresh vegetables, (https://www.gov.br/agricultura/pt-br/assuntos/noticias-2022/produtores-nao-sao-obrigados-a-informar-prazo-de-validade-em-vegetais-frescos-embalados), so we are checking with them, since now the vegetables sold will be those that meet the minimum requirements of identity and quality, characteristics that can be benefited with our lines. We are proposing a work.
We have other lines such as the polyethylene ziplock that we have also developed with antibacterial technology. We have a strategy to emphasize the gain in useful life, because we realize that it makes sense to talk much more about a final benefit than the functionality of the #technology, which would be the means by which this characteristic is obtained. Because, when you talk about bactericide, many times people can't understand that this effect protects their food that can be contaminated by microorganisms if it is not well protected.
Because technology does not visually influence the characteristics of our plastic film, people focus on the common purpose and sometimes say: "Right. But the other one also protects. So we need to emphasize: "While the others have only a mechanical barrier, ours has an extra barrier against #micro-organisms". So our strategy is to focus on an important final benefit: the consumer's food can gain shelf life.
3) What is Alpes monitoring at the moment?
Alpes created a landing page called "AlpFilmCycle", we are focusing and monitoring sustainability and the future, news are coming, our eyes are focused on an ecological and social bias.
