As the pet industry grapples with the 300 million pounds of flexible plastic packaging it generates annually—99% of which is currently unrecyclable—innovative solutions and consumer education are becoming more crucial than ever to the achieving a more circular economy for pet food and treat packaging. This episode highlights the progress being made toward this goal, while also addressing the barriers that remain along the supply chain and within the recycling sector.

Helpful Links

Packaging Sustainability is the Future! https://bsmpartners.net/insights/packaging-sustainability-is-the-future/

2025 sustainability targets loom for pet industry: https://www.petfoodprocessing.net/articles/18048-2025-sustainability-targets-loom-for-pet-industry

Mars doubts it can achieve 2025 sustainable packaging targets, in Packaging Dive: https://www.packagingdive.com/news/mars-recyclable-packaging-sustainability-report-2023/722578/

Deciphering Sustainability Claims on Pet Food Packaging: https://bsmpartners.net/insights/deciphering-sustainability-claims-on-pet-food-packaging/  

Chasing Arrows: What Does It Mean For Recycling? https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/chasing-arrows-what-does-mean-recycling-bsm-partners-tm80c/

Show Notes

00:00 – Welcome Back!

01:53 – The Plastic Packaging Problem

03:53 – Innovative Solutions in the Pet Product Space

05:31 – Persisting Challenges

07:05 – Big Brands Make Big Commitments—But Can They Keep Them?

10:55 – Unpacking Limitations in Recycling

12:58 – Driving Change Through Technology

15:09 – The How2Recycle Label & Consumer Education

17:10 – Final Thoughts

Hey, you're back!

We're more than halfway through our Top Trends to Watch in 2025 miniseries,

in which we're sharing expert insights and opinions about the most influential

trends happening in the pet nutrition space today, and how pet parents can

stay informed and engaged as these trends evolve this year and beyond.

Thanks for joining us so far, and prepare yourself for another thought

provoking installment of this series, today focused on sustainable

pet food and treat packaging.

There's been a common theme in our previous 3 Trends episodes, and

that's a need for education, whether around identifying real sustainability

initiatives from greenwashing, understanding the merits and unknowns

of alternative proteins, or bringing pet parents around to the power of

biotic ingredients in moderating and improving their pet's gut health.

But there's yet another area ripe for education, and you've probably

already guessed it has to do with today's trend of sustainable packaging.

In today's episode, we're going behind the scenes of a few major companies

sustainable packaging commitments, speculating on whether or not they

will actually 2025, And discussing why recycling is so confusing and difficult

for consumers and how the industry is working to overcome such barriers.

Welcome to Barking Mad, a podcast by BSM Partners.

I'm your host, Jordan Tyler.

There is a significant need to reduce the amount of plastic waste the industry

puts out into the world each year.

While progress is certainly being made in this area, there is

plenty of room for improvement.

According to the Pet Sustainability Coalition, which is an organization

dedicated to supporting pet industry companies as they seek to become more

sustainable, The North American pet food and treat industry alone is responsible

for more than 300 million pounds of flexible plastic packaging annually, of

which 99% is effectively unrecyclable due to being made of multiple materials all

laminated together that are impossible to recycle altogether or even separate.

According to Allison Reeser, Director of Sustainability and Innovation

at Pet Sustainability Coalition, this packaging waste comes with

jarring environmental impacts.

Plastic packaging, when it is in the landfill, it's either Like,

leaching chemicals there, that's not a great outcome, or if it ends up in

the environment, of course, that is a problem from a biodiversity standpoint.

But even from a business standpoint, it just doesn't make sense, the

linear economy model, where you take a natural resource, you use it for a

while, and then it just goes and sits in a pile somewhere to waste away.

So I'm really excited about the circular economy.

I think it can bring a lot of good benefit to packaging.

But one of the key barriers is that the regular economics

of it doesn't make sense.

So things like glass and aluminum, we can commonly recycle those because a

recycler can turn a profit on that.

They can run it through their system, sell the output, and that

is a business model for them.

But flexible plastic packaging, like what our pet food is, Commonly packaged

in, it just doesn't turn a profit and recycling is really challenging for that.

And so we, we got to make the economics work out.

So recycling is definitely a challenge.

And we'll get to that piece of the equation here in just a minute.

But first, I'm curious to know how companies are tackling the

sustainable packaging conundrum.

And Allison readily shared a couple different initiatives that she's seen.

The biggest thing I'm hearing most from companies is a switch

to monomaterial packaging, which is also called recycle ready packaging,

and it's like, as simple as it sounds.

So a lot of flexible plastic packaging is made up of multiple different types of

plastics, so when it goes to recycling, like, you'd have to separate those

plastics apart, and that's very difficult.

Um, so I'm seeing a lot of, um, Packaging suppliers and the brands that would

source that packaging switch to mono material, um, which again is just easier

to recycle because you don't have to separate out those component parts.

So, no, there's a ton of investment going into that, which I love to see.

I'm also seeing a lot of conversations about post consumer recycled content.

I know that that Tends to land really well with customers if

they say like, Oh, this is a post consumer recycled bag of some sort.

So there are some companies looking into that.

And also I wanted to call out that post industrial recycled content is a little

bit easier to implement right now.

Um, so what that means is if there's any sort of, Packaging or material

that is kind of a waste product from making the package in the beginning.

So it hasn't been in a consumer's arms yet.

That material is a little cleaner and easier to recycle into something else.

So I'm seeing some companies take advantage of that as well.

Okay.

So switching to mono material bags.

And incorporating post consumer or post industrial recycled materials

are a couple things we have up our sleeves to try to reduce this insane

amount of plastic packaging waste.

But I also asked Allison what other apparent challenges packaging suppliers

and brands are facing today in the quest for more sustainable packaging materials.

And she had a few things top of mind.

The heavy and bulky aspect is still a challenge.

In talking to the packaging suppliers that we work with, they're still

all trying to come up with the best solution for how can you have a mono

material package that still stands up to a drop test when it is carrying,

I don't know, 50 pounds of dog food.

So that's still a challenge.

I don't think we've quite solved that one yet, but lots

of companies are working on it.

The other one that really What came to mind is the trend of fresh and frozen and

interesting food formats in the pet food industry that requires just a totally

different type of packaging that needs to stand up to different sorts of conditions.

And so I think the packaging side of things has to keep up with the brand and

the product development side of things.

And again, Because what's inside of the package has way more impact,

it's super important that that food stays fresh, because if there's any

sort of spoilage or waste, that is like the worst possible outcome.

So again, there's like a whole long list of priorities for packaging

suppliers and packaging design.

In other words, achieving sustainable packaging is

much more complicated than it seems.

And if you've been paying attention, that's kind of a common theme for

sustainability goals in general.

Speaking of, let's look at this through the lens of the three major multinational

pet food manufacturers out there today.

Nestle Purina.

Hills Pet Nutrition and Mars Pet Care.

Starting with Purina, the company is committed to transitioning 100 percent

of its plastic packaging materials to those that are designed for

recycling or designed to be recycled.

Currently, they are at around 90 percent and their goal is to reach

95 percent by the end of 2025.

At Hill's Pet Nutrition, 70 percent of their global pet food packaging by

weight has been recyclable since 2019.

And they've also been using recyclable corrugated boxes made with 65 percent

recycled content since 2019 as well.

They also claim they're working to reduce the amount of plastic they use overall.

Now, what's really interesting are Mars Pet Care's commitments.

So the company has several dog and cat food and treat brands that have publicly

committed to various initiatives to reduce single use plastic packaging,

incorporate recycled materials, and lower carbon emissions associated

with its packaging operations.

And the sheer scale of changes that must be made to accommodate these

sustainable packaging initiatives was actually discussed in a recent article

in Packaging Dive, which we'll link in the show notes for this episode.

But essentially, the article discusses how executives at Mars are kind of tempering

their outlook when it comes to their sustainable packaging goals for 2025.

They said they're making good progress, however, the design and infrastructure

changes needed to facilitate this sort of shift are taking longer than they

anticipated, so they're unlikely to fully meet their goal by the end of 2025.

Well, 2025 is, right?

It's happening, whether we like it or not.

And while these commitments were made years ago, the

time of reckoning is upon us.

What does this commentary from Mars really say about

sustainable packaging as a trend?

We spoke with Kim Zucadis, Director of Packaging Engineering at

BSM Partners, to get the scoop.

You

know, these goals are set by their sustainable executive teams.

But when it comes down to it, and I think that this is what a lot of

companies are seeing, is that sustainable materials cost is a challenge.

And so overcoming that is something that has to be done.

And then every company has this goal set of 2025, and all the suppliers are

really struggling to supply the materials.

to the companies for trialing and then for production.

So that's a challenge as well.

Just the infrastructure of recyclable materials.

And then finally, you know, that it takes time, especially for consumer or pet

food, to evaluate the product performance.

So what that means is, you know, in packaging, when we Have a new material

for a food item or a kibble or a treat.

We have to do some sort of shelf life testing to make sure that we're

not getting off flavors from the new material and things like that.

And sometimes that can take, you know, up to a year or even more.

And so when you start thinking about the timeline, I can see why.

Potentially some companies might be pulling back from that 2025

sustainability goal, but then I know as well, you know, that companies

are diligently working on it as well.

So I want to go

back to the recyclability piece.

A lot of plastics on the market are just not conducive to being recycled,

and that's because the recycling infrastructure we have available to us

doesn't always readily accept plastic materials for a variety of reasons.

One of those reasons is they cost more to recycle than they're worth after the fact.

So there's kind of a return on investment issue there for material

recovery facilities or MRFs, if you've heard of that acronym.

But according to Kim, many municipalities across the United States don't even

accept plastics like pet food bags.

So really, the only avenue for getting these bags and films recycled is

through a retail store drop off program.

And That requires buy in from the consumer, right?

Maybe it's an extra trip to the store.

Maybe it's extra time.

It's certainly not as convenient as just sticking it in your bin at home and

dragging it out to the curb once a week.

All that to say, there are still significant barriers.

And one thing, especially with treats and kibble bags, because

we know when you open, there's a lot of grease in those and those really need to

be cleaned out and all debris removed.

So that's another step that the consumers have to perform before they take them

to their store drop off locations.

One other thing to mention is that as far as the store drop offs.

I think a lot of consumers wonder what happens to those materials, and

I have heard some of the companies that, you know, like PetSmart talk

about, they do get that stuff recycled.

It doesn't just go into a landfill.

So they are doing something with it, so whether it's sometimes maybe turning it

into a plastic bench or something like that, something is happening to it.

It's not just going to the store from the consumer into the landfill,

so that can make consumers feel a little bit better, right?

Despite these challenges, and as evidenced by Kim's last point

here, Good progress is still being made in the realm of sustainable

pet food and treat packaging.

When it comes to recycling in particular, Kim highlighted a really cool technology

being used by material recovery facilities to close some of these gaps.

There's some really cool trends going on in recycling right now and

one of them is the use of AI in recycling, which I think is something that could

really help what we've been talking about.

A lot of the material recovery facilities are using AI so that

they can do material identification.

They can collect recycling trend data, which is going to be

really helpful for the future.

Uh, any kind of sorting, this can help sort materials.

more efficiently.

And then also, which I think is really interesting, is they are able to do

household collection data, so they can understand who's recycling what,

and better help educate the consumers.

And these are all brand new things coming in, into the recycling

industry, but really exciting, I think, to help change things.

With technological advancements on the horizon and

continued consumer education, the path forward for sustainability

remains rocky, but not impossible.

I like to believe people want to do the right thing, and enhancing the

accessibility of municipal recycling, as well as building out store drop

off programs, and arming pet owners with accurate information about a

package's ability to be recycled, are all steps in the right direction.

It's really confusing for consumers, and I've seen stats on

the percentage of packaging recycled, and it really has not changed.

So, I don't know if that's telling you something, but again, I think

consumer education on what can be recycled and where it can go is

so important to moving forward.

One way to affect this consumer education is through

certifications and on package labels, like the How to Recycle label.

Which I'm sure many of you have seen on some kind of products packaging,

whether you realized it or not, how to recycle is all about being transparent

with consumers about a package's ability to be recycled in an effort to

reduce confusion and prevent recycling streams from being contaminated

with non recyclable materials.

Now, when this contamination occurs, it can actually result in

perfectly recyclable materials being thrown out with the contamination,

which kind of negates the whole point of recycling to begin with.

So, for this reason and others, let's come back to Allison, who said

she believes investment in consumer education is one of the most important

pieces of the sustainability puzzle.

When we think about the consumer perspective of things, we want to

be educating consumers about like, okay, what should you do with your packaging?

But most of the time they have no information about what

the package is made out of.

And so I respect so highly any company that will put on the how to recycle label,

but it says not recyclable, throw it away.

Because that's what consumers need to know because Falsely

recycling things is a problem because that creates contamination.

So if any company wants the nudge, please invest in properly labeling

your package so consumers know what they need to do with it.

If you caught the first episode in our Trends to Watch in 2025

miniseries, you may recognize this as the direct opposite of greenwashing.

Which is definitely a step forward for the industry and for

sustainability initiatives in general.

And if you didn't catch this episode, we spent a good portion on the phenomenon of

greenwashing and just how harmful it can be for real progress and sustainability.

And of course I'm biased, but I think it's a really valuable discussion

and encourage you to check it out.

Now, from the staggering amount of plastic waste generated by the

industry annually to the challenges of making recycling both practical and

profitable, there's no overnight fix to sustainable pet food and treat packaging.

And while this episode comes to a close, we've really just started

embarking down a path that could truly bring us closer to a more circular

economy for product packaging.

With innovations like mono material films.

AI powered recycling facilities and increased consumer

education and transparency.

We'll be keeping our finger on the pulse of this trend moving forward this year and

beyond through our sustainability series and other episodes aimed at helping you

navigate the complex world of pet care.

Don't forget to come back tomorrow when we'll wrap this series with a

fifth and final trend to watch in 2025.

Personalized Pet Nutrition.

This conversation will explore the increasingly tailor made nature of our

pet's nutrition, from custom formulated diets, to portion control, to breed

specific science, all the way to wearable technologies that can tell us everything

we need to know about our pet's health and what it has to do with their diet.

We'll also provide a quick recap for the entire series, and I'll share my

key takeaway from all of these trends.

You won't want to miss it.

Until then!

Thank you for tuning in to Barking Mad, a podcast by BSM Partners.

If you'd like to learn more about us, please visit our

website@www.bsmpartners.net.

Don't forget to subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcast.

And if you enjoyed today's episode, share it with a fellow

pet lover and leave us a review.

Lastly, be sure to stay tuned for more insights this week from our Trends

2025 mini series, as well as future episodes on pet care innovation,

sustainability, and other hard hitting topics you won't want to miss.

We'd like to thank our dedicated team in support of this episode.

A special thanks to Leanne Haggerty and Michael Johnson.

See you next time!