To green its packaging, candymaker Chewters first wanted compostability but instead chose recycled plastic

Like many companies, Canadian candy brand Chewters Chocolates Inc. is adding recycled plastic to its packaging. But it wasn't actually the company's first choice for greening its wrappers and pouches.

Vice President of Sales Trent Thibert wanted to use compostable packaging, but getting there right now, with current materials and manufacturing needs, proved too difficult. So the Delta, British Columbia-based sweets maker is settling on recycled plastic as a first step.

The company and its plastics supplier, TC Transcontinental Packaging, talked about the hurdles and the progress toward reducing its environmental footprint in a May 7 panel discussion during the virtual Antec conference, hosted by the Society of Plastics Engineers.

The first thing, Thibert said, was being responsive to consumer sentiment.

"We're pivoting in the marketplace and consumers are saying, 'Look, I'm tired of going to the beach and seeing this plastic, I'm tired of seeing this on the street and I'm tired of really not having a place for this stuff to go,'" said Thibert. "So you're seeing this incredible pushback."

He told the online audience his first thought was to move away from traditional plastic, recycled or otherwise, for the stand-up pouches and other materials they use.

"My personal belief is that compostability is the way of the future," he said. "However, we're just not there with the type of material substrates that we've got."

Manufacturing needs were a major limit. Chocolate flows at 920 pieces a minute down the production line into its automatic packing machinery, and the new materials had to work within its existing cold-seal technologies and could not impede manufacturing. That was nonnegotiable for the company, Thibert said.

"We just cannot head that way in the compostability aspect that I wanted," he said. "So then we pivoted … based on the uniqueness of our machines and what was available to us."

Thibert and Rebecca Casey, TC's senior vice president of strategy and marketing, told the Antec panel the two companies arrived at using post-consumer plastic.

Right now, it's using 38 percent post-consumer recycled plastic in some of the packaging, but it's still being worked out ahead of a public announcement planned in early 2022, Thibert said. Eventually, he said, he wants a higher level of recycled content.

It's also crucial to make sure it's seamless for customers.

"This is what you have to get right, right out of the gate," he said. "Consumers, they'll reward you with a lot of love if you do it right, but if they feel that you are misleading them, they don't just try to slap you on the wrist, they destroy brands. They're unforgiving and they don't forget."

Thibert said it was possible, from a technical standpoint, to use compostable materials on the outer stand-up pouch, but Chewters would still have had to use post-consumer recyclate on other packaging and felt it could be confusing to consumers to mix the two approaches in one product.

Casey said the firms have started with recyclate levels they know will perform well.

"We started off at a level that we know will have great performance and that we know would run smoothly on his machines to make sure that the total cost of ownership would remain the same, even though he is going to be paying a premium to incorporate PCR into his package," she said.

She said TC has invested in equipment to improve its ability to handle post-consumer resin.

"When we started the journey, we were running much slower as well and now have been able to get our converting equipment up to the speeds that are necessary to be able to be at a more cost-competitive price point," she said.

Casey said the push toward recycled content is in line with commitments Chicago-based TC made for 10 percent post-consumer recycled content across its plastics packaging by 2025, a target it set when it joined the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's New Plastics Economy project in 2019.

Thibert said he's satisfied with the progress they're making with recycled content, as the companies work out any bugs in the manufacturing process.

"We're producing product that actually has an environmental advantage and we're excited about that," he said. "But we're not calling it out on the packaging yet. We need to see how this works."

When they do start calling it out, though, he said sees it as a long-term marketing and business advantage.

Thibert said it's a common pushback and worry inside companies that making packaging with recycled content or compostability will wind up costing money.

He acknowledges that can be true, in part because plastic packaging companies have developed extremely cost-effective production over decades with virgin materials.

But he thinks the marketplace is changing and argued that companies need to build expertise in using more environmentally friendly packaging.

"Yes, it's going to cost, but I can tell you if you wait to jump in this arena, when it is all the same price 10 or 20 years from now, you will not have the same opportunity from a brand perspective to own any sort of moral high ground, any sort of communication authority," he said.

He advocates viewing it as market development.

"I'm saying that's not a cost; it's a marketing spend," he said. "It's not only a marketing spend, but if you do it right, it will elevate your brand to those consumers who are conscious consumers."