The covid-19 pandemic couldn’t stop Campbell Soup Company from releasing new sustainable packaging goals in early May. All four goals that the company announced target the full packaging lifecycle.
Campbell Soup Company aims to have fully recyclable or industrially compostable designs and materials by 2030, use 25% post-consumer recycled content in PET bottles by 2030, increase recycling rates through on-pack labeling, and improve the recycling infrastructure with strategic partnerships.
“I’m actually pretty excited about the way that we’ve stepped up during the crisis these last few months,” said David Porter, senior director of enterprise packaging at Campbell Soup Company. “It’s more important than ever to keep focusing on sustainability and make sure you’ve got a resilient supply chain.”
Headquartered in Camden, New Jersey, the multinational food company has annual sales around $8.1 billion. Their brands include Campbell’s, Goldfish, Kettle Brand, Pepperidge Farm, Plum, Snyder’s of Hanover, and V8.
Environment + Energy Leader recently caught up with Porter to learn how Campbell Soup Company is pursuing these new sustainable packaging targets.
What prompted the company to set these goals?
We’ve always had sustainable packaging initiatives, but we wanted a program that was more comprehensive and addresses all the phases of the packaging lifecycle. Over the past couple years we’ve had some significant changes in our strategy and portfolio, and we wanted to build a new set of goals based on the current portfolio of products and packaging.
We know how important sustainable packaging has become to consumers, our customers, our employees certainly, and the environment. If you’re checking a box that says we’re delivering something consumers and customers are looking for, and something our employees can get behind, I think you can assume that it’s good for the business.
How are you planning to achieve the new goals?
We have two divisions: snacks, and meals and beverages. Each division has ownership of reaching the targets by addressing the specific challenges or gaps within their own packaging portfolio. Then we’ve got leads within each division, within my packaging function, responsible for making sure projects and programs are in place so we’re making progress.
For a few of our bigger challenges, we have dedicated technical teams focusing on the development of new technologies to create more sustainable alternatives for the packaging.
Do you have a system in place for measuring how you’re doing?
Leading up to the publication of the goals, we looked at how much packaging we’re using, the types of packaging we’re using, and where the biggest challenges are going to be.
Now we’re putting systems, processes, and tools in place to make sure that on a regular basis we’re reporting progress against some of the big technical challenges, and tracking how much packaging we are using. Do we have more that’s recyclable this year than last year?
One of our commitments is getting How2Recycle labeling across all of our packs. We have tracking tools to make sure that, as projects are coming through the pipeline, we’re getting those labels on.
How do you select tools and processes?
Some processes are already in place and we just need to take advantage of them. Some tools are home-grown because we knew where the data was and how to collect it, and we have the resources internally to do that. Then, for a couple of things we’re going to start tracking and reporting, we’re looking at external tools.
Packaging and sustainability is not just something that the packaging team or the ESG team is going to solve. It’s a cross-functional effort across the business. Procurement has data that we can utilize, and our data management teams have access to data and systems. It’s about how you bring all those things together.
What are the biggest challenges?
There are a couple technical challenges we’re going to have to overcome. One is how do we incorporate more post-consumer recycled content into our packaging.
Another is how do we find solutions for flexible packaging, which we use a lot of in our snacks portfolio. It’s not just a challenge for us, it’s a challenge on the materials and the design side, and on the collection and recycling infrastructure side, external to Campbell’s.
On that, we’ve made quite a bit of progress. We had a project last year where we redesigned the Kettle brand chip bags, and pulled about 43% of the plastic out of that packaging. The key was a partnership with our internal stakeholders like the manufacturing site, and partnership with external stakeholders like our supply base — and making sure we had the materials technologies in place so we could optimize the packaging for sustainability and maintain the performance.
How is Campbell Soup Company addressing the recycling infrastructure challenge?
What we’re looking to do is partner with peers in the industry and organizations that can scale dollars and capability. How recycling is collected and processed in a certain municipality may not be something that we can directly influence. But there are several groups we’re part of that have tools and capabilities to go into communities, educate consumers, improve access to recycling, and set standards for the process.
Some groups are looking at new technologies that would allow the curbside collection of flexibles, for example. We’re part of Materials Recovery for the Future (MRFF), an industry consortium looking at technologies to pilot at material collection facilities and with recyclers that allow for curbside collection, sortation, and processing of flexibles. That’s a group we’ve been part of through the Plum Organics baby food business, and in our next fiscal year we’re going to be expanding our engagement across the entire enterprise.
Do you have advice for fellow industry leaders around sustainable packaging?
A key for us was to be thinking of all the stakeholders from the beginning — internal and external stakeholders — engaging them early and making sure that they were on board. In doing that, we had a network of industry partners and we were consulting with some of our retail partners while we drafted, refined, and announced our goals.
Another important thing when we were creating these goals was to make sure that they’re robust but also realistic and achievable. On that point, we’re already getting a lot of great feedback from internal and external stakeholders. Everybody’s got a lot of passion for this area.
Anything you wish you’d known when you started working on the goals?
The biggest thing, as I’ve reflected on our experience and compared that to others, is don’t develop things insularly. Get external stakeholders involved very early on because you want to make sure that what you’re doing is a win for everybody.
