Ecoagro Gaspar Sows the Seeds of Sustainability with Scholle IPN
About Ecoagro Gaspar
Ecoagro Gaspar is a Chilean agricultural company with over seven decades of experience creating eco-protective products. They make fungicides, bactericides, and foliar fertilizers derived from copper, which offers growers a chemical-free option to protect crops and support their growth. Every item on their line is backed by years of research and rigorous testing. Their goal is to foster agricultural health while promoting ecological sustainability.
Ecoagro recently launched Greencopper Plus, a fertilizer that supports the nutrition and biostimulation of crops such as stone fruits, tropical fruits, and legumes. They took sustainability a step further by reexamining their current packaging.
Partners for Success
Originally, Greencopper came in traditional plastic drums, which were difficult to store and required a significant amount of plastic to manufacture. Plastic drums didn’t align with the overall sustainability objectives of Ecoagro, so they reached out to Scholle IPN to explore new packaging solutions.
Ecoagro switched to our 20L Jerribox, a bag-in-box that’s especially well-suited to meet the needs of Greencopper customers. The Jerribox is a glug-free bulk package that collapses on itself as it is used—this design prevents spills and reduces waste.
This is the first time we’ve worked with Ecoagro, and we sought to make the transition to Jerriboxes simple and immediately impactful. By swapping out plastic drums, Ecoagro reduced their plastics usage by 80%, lowered their logistics costs by 10%, and increased their storage capacity by over a third—a pallet of Greencopper in plastic drums held 640 liters of product. With Greencopper in Jerriboxes, a pallet holds 960 liters.
The switch to bag-in-box translated to increased efficiency for Ecoagro, which means they can focus on expansion and growth. “Thanks to the efficiency of our Greencopper Plus product and the multiple economic and agroecological benefits that we offer to agricultural producers…[we] envision a bright future for our company and product[s], both in the Chilean market and in some foreign countries where we are starting operations.” says Franco Grassi, Operations Manager at Ecoagro Gaspar.
Better for You. Better for the Environment.
Many of the partners we work with share our commitment to sustainability. As we strive to build a more circular economy—one that recognizes each link in the supply chain is connected—we saw in Ecoagro a similar approach to source reduction and responsible manufacturing. Ecoagro knew that moving towards flexible packaging wouldn’t just provide a one-off benefit, but would be felt throughout their entire company.
We specialize in producing the most innovative flexible packaging solutions, but we don’t stop there. We also identify quantitative ways in which flexible packaging can enhance and improve existing workflows and structures. For Ecoagro, we were able to provide:
- 83% reduction in plastic consumption—one plastic jug uses the same amount of resources as six 20L Jerriboxes
- 10% cut of logistics costs associated with new empty containers and recovery
- 5 times more product storage on the same pallet, saving energy during transport
- 18 megajoules (MJ) of energy saved per 20L Jerribox: for every 10,000 units sold, that adds up to enough energy to power 25 homes for a year
- 339 kg of CO2 emissions diverted per 20L Jerribox—in a year, that’s enough energy to drive 50,000 kilometers, or around the diameter of the Earth four times
We’re prepared to help you find and implement the best sustainable solution for your business. Contact us today and we’ll brainstorm a flexible packaging system that meets your specific needs.