Packaging update

A brighter future for sustainable foodservice containers

With its ability to tell a story while standing on a supermarket shelf, retail packaging easily flags a change in recyclable content or biodegradability. Not so with foodservice containers, which often go unseen by the people who consume the food these containers protect. That has retarded sustainable packaging initiatives, but with a push from some major players, foodservice suppliers are beginning to reassess their materials choices.

That’s good news for sustainable-packaging companies catering to the foodservice channel. Scores of them exhibited at this year’s National Restaurant Show in Chicago, where major suppliers such as International Paper and Solo Cup also trumpeted their earth-friendly options. Marketing director for Eco-Products, Wendell Simonson maintained that lots of people were looking for alternatives to conventional materials, though few retailers were actually buying alternative packaging at this point. But he believed more would follow, and he was impressed with the commitment by Starbucks to convert totally to recyclable materials by 2012.

Eco-Products started as a distributor of foodservice disposables made from recycled paper. Four years ago, the company began contracting with Asian manufacturers to make thermoformed cups, cutlery and other goods from polylactic acid (PLA) resins. More recently, plates and bowls made from the fibre of sugar cane stalks were added. Eco-Products clients include Burgerville USA, a 40-unit chain in the Pacific Northwest that has made sustainability and social responsibility a central part of its marketing message.

While Burgerville won’t influence foodservice suppliers’ materials choices, Starbucks will. Also McDonald’s Corporation is beginning to exert pressure on its suppliers for change; though it has a low-key public profile, it is quietly eliminating styrofoam clamshells and other environmentally objectionable materials. The company’s French outlets recently won a DuPont Packaging Award for a lightweight sandwich clamshell made of three-layer, fluted paperboard without barrier-coated solid bleached sulphate (SBS), but the entry came from its packaging partner, Havi Global Solutions.

Source: FoodEngineering
http://www.foodengineeringmag.com/CDA/Articles/Food_Packaging_News

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