Global materials science enterprise Avery Dennison (NYSE: AVY) recently announced the inaugural cohort of startups for AD Stretch, an accelerator program that seeks to advance innovation capabilities, pioneer new and sustainable solutions, and address some of the labels and packaging industry’s most pressing business challenges.
In collaboration with accelerator builder-operator Highline Beta, Avery Dennison will partner with five selected startups in Asia-Pacific to launch pilots based on three key themes—maximizing consumer experiences, materials and packaging 2.0, and sustainable, responsible and efficient value chains. The startups were selected based on their disruptive innovations for the labels and packaging industry, proposed go-to-market strategies, and their potential to scale their pilot with a global industry leader.
“We are delighted to see such strong interest from the startup world in our program, and to have been able to choose this exciting group of innovators from a talented applicant pool to help solve some of the challenges we face within Asia-Pacific,” says Anil Sharma, vice president and general manager, Labels and Graphic Materials Asia-Pacific, Avery Dennison. “We’re confident that the combination of our internal financial and innovation strength with the agility of start-up innovators is going to bring us to even greater heights in our efforts to improve efficiency in the supply chain, create the next generation of packaging and solve environmental challenges.”
The selected startups in Asia-Pacific are:
- CollectID – Piloting digital triggers in embellishments with a combination of encrypted, smartphone-ready NFC tags with secure, immutable NFTs (non-fungible tokens) to guarantee a product’s authenticity with just a single tap on the smartphone.
- FL Technology – By combining polymer material science and plant physiology, the team has created a nanomaterial that can simultaneously remove ethylene and inhibit the growth of decay-causing bacteria, which is applied to the green storage of fruits.
- Makegrowlabs – Growing and utilizing a new generation of materials and resources to replace fossil fuels in packaging, textile and others, and creating a solution that is durable and home-compostable as a great alternative to plastic-coated paper and foils.
- Varcode – An accessible solution for time and temperature monitoring data without the added use of batteries or electronics to improve the safety, quality and sustainability of perishable products all the way to the last mile.
- Wastelabs – An AI platform that optimizes expensive, inefficient waste and recycling logistics that enables manufacturers to produce more goods from recycled materials.
A first for the labels industry, the AD Stretch program aims to catalyze and engage with the startup ecosystem across Asia-Pacific and Latin America in addressing sustainability challenges. Avery Dennison will accelerate and amplify the program’s impact globally as the company rolls out AD Stretch in Europe and the United States later this year.
Learn more at ADStretch.com
