Mars Petcare is getting ready to deploy food safe recycled plastic in wet petfood packaging as part of its global commitment to increase recycled content in its plastic packaging. Leading cat food brand SHEBA® will be the first to have the updated packaging formats available in Europe in 2022 as part of Mars Petcare’s efforts to give pet parents more sustainable choices.
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The move comes in the context of a joint partnership of Mars Petcare with SABIC and Huhtamaki to develop and deploy recycled plastic in pet food pouches using advanced recycling technologies (also called ‘chemical recycling’). Only with advanced recycled materials and their ability to be food safe has this development been possible, and it is an excellent example of how this technology is essential to help close the gap in enabling plastic waste to become truly circular.
Barry Parkin, Chief Procurement and Sustainability Officer at Mars, Incorporated, said: “We are pleased to share this progress in our sustainable petfood packaging journey. Over the past year, we have been closely working with SABIC and Huhtamaki, continually testing-and-learning and scaling up the recycled plastic content in our petfood packs. As part of our Sustainable in a Generation plan, we are committed to doing our part to help drive a circular economy, which includes redesigning our packages for circularity. The fact that we are now able to introduce recycled content into our SHEBA® pouches helps accelerate our journey to achieve 30% average recycled content in our plastic packaging and to reduce by 25% our use of virgin plastic.”
Petfood packaging is considered to be a very challenging packaging format to utilize recycled content due to thermal processing needed to create the highest quality. By using ISCC PLUS certified recycled material, Mars Petcare brings to life a technology that can provide a step-change in the sustainability journey of the pet-food industry.