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

There's been a common theme in our previous three 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.

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 Reser, Director of Sustainability and Innovation at Pet Sustainability Coalition, this packaging waste comes with jarring environmental impacts.

Allison Reser: Plastic packaging, when it is in the landfill, it's either 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 benefits 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, just doesn't turn a profit, and recycling is really challenging for that. And so, we’ve got to make the economics work out.

Jordan Tyler: 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 of different initiatives that she's seen.

Allison Reser: The biggest thing I'm hearing most from companies is a switch to mono-material packaging, which is also called recycle-ready packaging, and it's 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, you'd have to separate those plastics apart, and that's very difficult.

So, I'm seeing a lot of packaging suppliers and the brands that would source that packaging switch to mono-material, which, again, is just easier to recycle because you don't have to separate out those 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 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. 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.

Jordan Tyler: Okay, so switching to mono-material bags and incorporating post-consumer or post-industrial recycled materials are a couple of 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 on top of mind.

Allison Reser: 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 you can 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 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 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.

Jordan Tyler: 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, Hill’s Pet Nutrition, and Mars Pet Care.

Now, what's really interesting is 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.

Kim Szukaitis: 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 then finally that it takes time, especially for consumer or pet food, to evaluate the product performance. So, what that means is in packaging, when we have a new material for a food item or a kibble, or a treat. We must 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.

Jordan Tyler: 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 that 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.

Kim Szukaitis: 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 must 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 are concerned. I think a lot of consumers wonder what happens to those materials, and I have heard some of the companies, like PetSmart, talk about how 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?

Jordan Tyler: 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.

Kim Szukaitis: There are 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.

Any kind of sorting can help sort materials more efficiently. And then also, which I think is really interesting, is they can 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.

Jordan Tyler: 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.

Kim Szukaitis: 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.

Jordan Tyler: 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 product’s 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 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.

Allison Reser: 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 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.

This is definitely a step forward for the industry and 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.

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.

We'd like to thank our dedicated team in support of this episode: Ada-Miette Thomas, Neeley Bowden, Kait Wright, and Dr. Katy Miller. A special thanks to Lee Ann Hagerty and Michael Johnson. See you next time!