Kickstart: Unilever goes on a diet

Unilever plc, one of the world's largest consumer brands and a major plastics user, is trimming down and cutting ice cream from its diet.

A Growth Action Plan, announced March 19, will see Unilever sell its ice cream business — with global sales of more than $8.5 billion — to be followed by a "productivity program" that will cut 7,500 jobs and save about $868 million annually.

London-based Unilever's ice cream division includes the Ben & Jerry's and Magnum brands. In announcing its plans, the company noted that ice cream requires different supply chain and point-of-sale logistics than its other holdings.

It will retain its beauty and well-being, personal care, home care and nutrition business units. Those divisions include brand names such as Dove, Vaseline, Axe, Sunlight, Hellmann's and Knorr.

"Under the [plan] we have committed to do fewer things, better and with greater impact," CEO Hein Schumacher said in a news release.

There's a new competitor for plastic bags at store checkout aisles: cardboard.

DS Smith plc, a maker of corrugated cardboard, has launched the "shop.able" brand for retailers as an alternative to both plastic and paper bags.

While boxes are often repurposed by consumers at membership warehouse stores, DS Smith says it created the new product line specifically for consumer use. They feature handles, a surface approved for food contact and the ability to fold flat for storage.

"Eighteen states already have enacted legislation to ban plastic bags and major retailers … have joined the 'Beyond the Bag Initiative,'" DS notes on its website.

The website Progressive Grocery notes DS Smith's first user, an unnamed regional supermarket chain in the U.S., is on pace to replace up to 100,000 plastic bags in its first year of use.

London-based DS Smith sold its plastics extrusion container business to Liqui-Box Inc. in 2020 to create Corplex.

Usually I don't pay much attention to the voting for the World Video Game Hall of Fame at the Strong National Museum of Play, the same organization that hosts the Toy Hall of Fame each year. After all, video games are more about software and coding than plastics.

Guitar Hero is an exception as it "challenged players to unleash their inner rock star by following on-screen notes and strumming to the beat of popular music on a plastic guitar." It is now one of 12 finalists for the video game recognition in 2024.

Guitar Hero first hit the market in 2005, made by Harmonix.

Guitar Hero went on to sell more than 25 million units. Wisconsin rotomolder Seljan Co. Inc. produced a more robust guitar for games sold to arcades and bars. A game with another interactive playing surface — Dance, Dance, Revolution — failed to make the cut for the hall in 2022.

Inductees will be named May 9.