DÜSSELDORF, Germany — The importance of sustainability, when it comes to convenience products like drinking straws is increasing steadily for consumers as well as regularity bodies and legislation. Hence, suitable alternatives for single-use plastics like paper straws are on high demand. On March 24^th, the Charter of Trust for paper straws was launched by 360° Foodservice, an association of which Henkel Adhesive Technologies is a member.

360° Foodservice unites the whole value chain that provides reuse and single-use solutions for safely serving food and beverages. The Charter of Trust identifies the requirements that all components of paper straw manufacturing need to fulfill in one document in order to provide safe products in Europe and help food service operators to have confidence in the safety of their products. As a leading supplier for adhesives for paper straws, Henkel has contributed to the content and signed this charter, emphasizing that the company has already implemented these standards globally.

Distributors and retailers will benefit from the Charter of Trust by having confidence in the safety of the products they serve. The Charter of Trust is a powerful tool for parts of the value chain that will fill this blank space, helping to identify compliant and safe products more easily. Paper straws consist of several elements — paper, inks and adhesive — which all need to be perfectly aligned to create a food-safe product. The Charter of Trust summarizes and highlights existing safety and regulatory standards that may pose a challenge for companies in and outside of Europe that are not familiar with the EU standards. Straw providers and their trusted suppliers, like Henkel, do place safety first, but since safety and regulatory policies vary across regions, the creation of a focused EU standard is a step towards standardization, signaling to customers worldwide what characteristics need to be met by a safe paper straw.

"Food safety, sustainability and high-performance solutions were at the core of what we do since the beginning of our business and still are to this day," said Christin Noack, Market Strategy Manager Europe at Henkel Adhesive Technologies. "With our contribution and commitment to the Charter of Trust we solidify our pursuit to help our customers to create the best possible and compliant products for consumers. We can assist our European and likewise our global customers and partners to obtain and interpret the regulations which apply to the European market, to ensure compliance throughout the complete product lifecycle. Through collaboration with us they can rest assured that they are utilizing adhesives within their products that can be trusted and comply with strictest rules and regulations."

For more information, visit www.henkel.com.