BOCA RATON, FL — The Coca-Cola Company today announced a partnership that will license the beverage giant's plant-based packaging to Heinz for use in its ketchup packaging.
The bottle technology, which Coke launched in 2009, uses a plastic sourced from sugarcane waste to replace 30 percent of the plastic in beverage bottles. The company's goal is to eventually achieve 100 percent renewable sources for its packaging, and licensing the technology to Heinz will no doubt help fund the research process.
Heinz plans to introduce PlantBottled ketchup this summer across the United States, switching out about 120 million of its 20-ounce retail and foodservice bottles with the partly renewable packaging. The PlantBottles will have a special label and environmental messages to communicate the benefits of the plant-based packaging to shoppers.
During a press conference this morning at the CAGNY annual conference in Boca Raton, Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent and Heinz CEO William Johnson spelled out the details and the benefits of the partnership.
"This partnership represents a significant landmark," in Coke's journey to achieve its environmental goals, including water neutrality and carbon neutrality, Kent said. Furthermore, it is "the future of the world, we at the Coca-Cola Company believe, lies in the golden triangle of partnerships between business and industry, between business and government, and between civil society."
Coke has already planned to invest more than $150 million in the PlantBottle technology, with a goal of reaching 100 percent renewable and recyclable packaging as soon as the technology allows. Although both CEOs declined to share financial details of the licensing agreement, adding a no-doubt-significant investment from Heinz into PlantBottle technology will also help Coke further its research into renewable packaging.
Kent also said that Coke expects to double its use of PlantBottle packages as the company expands beyond the current nine countries where they sell the products, as well as expand the number of brands that use PlantBottle packaging.
Heinz CEO Johnson said the partnership is a strategic initiative from Heinz as well. "Switching to PlantBotle is another step in our global sustainability initiative to reduce [emissions, waste, energy and water] impacts by 20 percent by 2015." Heinz said the company is on its way to achieve those goals, which were announced two years ago.
Kent cited a study conducted recently at the Imperial College in London that found Coke's use of PlantBottle technology can cut the company's carbon footprint by 12 and 19 percent. And as plastic recycling rates increase, the carbon impacts of the bottles continue to decline. Kent said that PlantBottles used in Denmark are made of 50 percent recycled plastic as well as 30 percent PlantBottle.
Although the PlantBottle technology currently costs slightly more to produce than traditional plastic -- costs that both CEOs repeatedly said were not passed on to shoppers -- investing in renewably sourced and recyclable packaging provides both more future cost stability and helps achieve sustainability goals.
"Over time, depending where the price of nonrenewable fuels go," Johnson said, "this could be a long-term cost savings because of stability. Long-term, we see this as cost benefit."
Zelda - your question is so
Zelda - your question is so right on! To answer it all we need to do is look at what has happened with corn. In many areas it is now planted exclusively for ethanol and plastic production. It is the largest contributor to water pollution and creating dead zones in our waterways from excessive fertilizer use. Add to that the little known fact that it takes more petroleum to make corn based plastic than standard petroleum plastic, and all we end up with is clever marketing pushed by big companies to make more money at the expense of the environment. The rain forests are disappearing faster than we can control, the most bio-diverse places will in the coming years be non-existent. Is this a solution we are willing to accept?
All we need is for these large companies to look at things from a holistic view and be honest with us.
Superb points made here. I'd
Superb points made here.
I'd like to add a couple more : the corn referred to is also Genetically Engineered, and thus a major threat to global food viability, as well as rendering the land on which it is planted unable to do normal carbon sequestration, and dramatically increasing the volumes of herbicides used.
Also, what are the ramifications of current methods of sugarcane farming ? Can and will those become ecologically healthy/appropriate?
This doesn't appear to be the
This doesn't appear to be the same as the "Sunchips bag fiasco" which seemed to fail from the compostable nature of the product. The PlantBottle looks like a product made from PET plastic that uses sugar-cane waste as an input. The end product seems to be 100% recyclable PET plastic using current recycling practices.
Is the “PlantBottle” the 2011
Is the “PlantBottle” the 2011 version of the Sunchips bag fiasco?
Or are they also commited to help develop the recycling infrastructure for these products?
I’m all for developing containers that reduce our dependence on finite resources, but I’m not in favor of promoting those products as recyclable when the infrastructure to do so isn’t developed or even being contemplated.
what will happen when the
what will happen when the demand for sugar cane waste exceeds the amount of sugar cane waste being produced? will this ever happen? will they plant more sugar cane to 'save the environment'?
is a saving of 12 - 19 % really that impressive?