Pretzel maker Snyder’s of Hanover has increased sustainability and cost-savings by making changes to packaging specifications and the way it transports products and raw materials.
Georgia-Pacific worked on the project.
The company redefined box compression requirements for 8 of the its 10 packaging specifications and developed more cost-effective designs for 6 of the 10 specifications, according to GP. It also developed a new package design for one product that reduced the overall knockdown size, fiber content and cost without changing the inside dimensions.
Overall, GP’s redesigns and packaging optimizations have saved Snyder’s over 350 tons of fiber, the equivalent of nearly 971 tons of greenhouse gas reductions.
In addition, Snyder’s had recently upgraded its shipping fleet from 42- to 53-ft. trailers, increasing the capacity of each shipment to reduce shipping and fuel costs. GP reconfigured cubing and palletizing post-production to take advantage of the increased shipping capacity from manufacturing to distribution centers.
Snyder’s also reduced transportation costs on the back end, reconfiguring the cubing and palletizing of materials to increase the amount of corrugated boxes shipped to Snyder’s with each truckload, reducing the number of truck loads of in-bound corrugated packaging by 167 a year. By reducing the number of in-bound trailer loads, Snyder’s saves 1,640 gallons of fuel per year.