EDITOR’S NOTE: Pepsi and others have recently announced new “greener” packaging for their products. Here’s a bit more information from Tony Knoerzer, VP of advanced research-food packaging at PepsiCo.
Q: What are the next steps for packaging sustainability in Pepsi? Can you share with us the next steps for the green bottle?
A: I really can’t say much about the green bottle at this time. As for our next steps we believe that more sustainable packaging should start with more sustainable raw materials. It is our opinion that one of the best places to look for those materials is among agricultural wastes, and in particular those things that are gathered along with the product and not readily re-introduced back to the field. Things like hulls, peels/skins, seeds, cores and shells are in this category. We also believe that under the right circumstances growing crops is a viable starting point—provided provisions are made to graduate to Ag wastes in the future.
Q: What are you looking forward to hear at the 2012 Sustainability in Packaging Conference?
A: How suppliers are going to adapt to the changing environment; increasing demands from end users on both cost and performance, rising consumer expectations around environmental performance and the proliferation of smaller startup companies (driven by people becoming entrepreneurs in the weak economy) that want to cherry pick the best opportunities. Collaboration and flexibility are no longer the competitive advantages they once were but are rather requirements of the new economy—what will become the new competitive advantage?
via PackagingDigest.com.
