By: Henriette Bylling, CEO aka The Queen of Petfood at Aller Petfood Group

Sustainability is the last of the top 3 trends within the world of pet food which was highlighted at the Petfood Industry webinar by WATT Media. Sustainability covers a broad range of areas. However, in this article I will focus on the packaging. Many major retail chains such as Iceland and Tesco have declared that they will ensure 100% sustainable and recyclable packaging material usage for their private label range by 2023/25. I believe that their private label range will only be the first step. Soon they will also introduce packaging material requirements to be used by the brands on their shelves.

As I see it you can take two routes to improve the sustainability of your pet food packaging:

–   Recycling

–   Bio-degradable packaging

Recycling as a culture – the Danish way

I was brought up with the recycling mentality. In Denmark we have had a bottle return system for soft drink and beer bottles as long as I can remember. This return system is incentivized by a small payment for each bottle returned and the bottles are then being reused by the breweries and soft drink producers.

With a population who already has this recycling mentality, it has certainly been easier for the Danish government to implement the extensive recycling system we have right on our doorstep today. Plastic, tins, paper, organic waste, batteries and electronics are all separated from the overall waste, and not at the recycling depot but by each household. Therefore, the recyclable plastic pet food bag would automatically be recycled. Consequently, you could argue that the issue of sustainable pet food packaging has already been dealt with in Denmark by the government?!

Turning the danish way into the global way?

This is all fine and well but, in my opinion, global problems should also be viewed from a global perspective. The fact is that many countries do not offer the consumer extensive recycling options like this. So, recycling is not a solution that can be applied for all geographic markets. However, as an international company, I still believe that you should take the social responsibility of choosing recyclable packaging solution to cater for those markets where recycling is possible. As a producer, you can and should obviously also recycle the packaging waste from the production process.

Is biodegradable packaging the way forward?

We are slowly but surely getting closer to a realistic sustainable substitution of some of the pet food packaging solutions. What I find interesting is to look into whether it is possible to find a packaging solution that would be sustainable in all markets including those with no or poor recycling options?

Biodegradable packaging material from i.e. maize starch has been available in the market for a while. The question is though if they have reached a point where they are fully biodegradable under all conditions and if they are a price-competitive alternative?

Few consumers are willing to pay a premium for a biodegradable packaging. Many parallels can be drawn to organic products. Generally, the number of consumers buying into the concept of organic is significantly higher than the number of consumers, who are consistently buying organic products and thus, are willing to pay for them.

In other words, the consumer might very well value the concept of pet food packaging material being biodegradable. However, they are not willing to go all the way and support this with their wallet.

For super premium or even premium products, biodegradable packaging offers an interesting USP (unique selling point). But for any pet food competing on price, a first mover introduction could result in losing the price competition because neither the retail buyer nor this consumer segment is not ready to pay a premium for this feature.

Who will push sustainable pet food packaging forward?

So, in summary: We can probably all agree that the future lies within sutainable packaging. However, whether it will be pushed by policy or consumers is hard to foresee. We might also see that it will be pushed by the large retail chains because their CSR strategies demand that the brands also start providing products in sustainable packaging.

I would very much like to hear your view on this topic. What is your opinion about the future of sustainable pet food packaging?

Link with Henriette Bylling on LinkedIn

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