Sustainability through Innovation & Design
Packaging’s primary purpose is to protect our products, deliver them safely and communicate key information to our customers and consumers. Our product packaging is composed of a variety of materials, ranging from corrugated and paper-based cartons to plastic resins. The material used must first meet food safety and user performance requirements, but ConAgra Foods also recognizes the importance of minimizing material use and incorporating more renewable and recycled-content materials in its packaging. Our Research, Quality & Innovation (RQI) group is committed to improving the sustainability of our product packaging while exceeding the needs and expectations of our customers and consumers. The group considers a thorough analysis of our products’ impact throughout sourcing, manufacturing, delivery and end of life. In addition, the group has established sustainable packaging principles and has incorporated these into its new product introduction process (see sidebar). Finally, ConAgra Foods’ RQI team works with a number of external organizations including the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, the multi-sponsor working group Future for Sustainable Packaging, the Institute for Packaging Professionals and the Packaging Association of Canada to ensure that the company is contributing to leading-edge product development efforts across the industry.

ConAgra Foods relies on its “5 R’s” to look for sustainable packaging opportunities: remove, reduce, recycle, renew and reuse. We will continue to look for ways to minimize the environmental impact of our packaging while assessing, developing and implementing forward thinking technologies that meet our customers’ and consumers’ needs.

ConAgra Foods’ principles of sustainable packaging
Protect the product and deliver it safely to our customers and consumers by

• Incorporating features that meet or exceed their needs
• Using the most economical means possible
• Integrating responsible sourcing of raw materials and renewable energy wherever possible
• Considering end of life
• Striving to minimize the life cycle impacts of our packaging.

Post-consumer recycled plastic frozen meal trays
ConAgra Foods was the first company in North America to incorporate post-consumer recycled plastic into frozen meal trays, in an effort to divert eight million pounds of plastic from landfills annually. We are now using an average of more than 15 percent postconsumer recycled plastic across our frozen foods brands, including: Healthy Choice®, Banquet®, Kid Cuisine® and Marie Callender’s® products. Most frozen meals trays used by other companies are made of crystallized PET plastic, a material that uses only newly produced plastics and that requires more energy and resources to produce. Post-consumer recycled plastic is packaging that has been used by consumers that primarily is sent to landfills, such as plastic bottles.

ConAgra Foods partnered with Associated Packaging Technologies to utilize a new technology that cleans recycled plastic for use as a component in frozen meal trays. Older plastics technologies limited food companies to using only new plastic to comply with regulations for direct food contact materials. The new ultra-clean processing technology makes it safe for consumers to eat the prepared food directly from the frozen meal trays. The new trays are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as direct food contact materials.

Recycled Polylactic Acid (PLA) Shrink Film Technology Reduces Impact on the Environment
ConAgra Foods is the first company in the world to use a new shrink film that contains more than 50 percent post-industrial recycled material, reducing landfill waste, greenhouse gases, and energy consumption. The new recycled PLA shrink film is used for tamper evident seals on ConAgra Foods’ table spreads – Fleischmann’s®, Blue Bonnet® and Parkay® - and for printed shrink labels for multi-packs of the company’s Reddi-Wip® whipped topping and PAM® cooking spray.

The new technology was developed in partnership with Plastic Suppliers, Bluepack, and NatureWorks LLC. The company’s conversion to the new material will divert more than 350,000 pounds of non-renewable Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) and more than 50,000 pounds of Polyethylene Terephthalate Glycol (PETG) from the company’s raw material stream annually. Because it contains more than 50 percent post-industrial recycled content, more than half the material that would traditionally be sent to landfills is now being diverted into a value-added end product. It also requires less energy at ConAgra Foods’ manufacturing facilities, reducing the temperature necessary to shrink the material by approximately 20 percent. Lastly, it provides a higher-quality finished product due to an improved shrink performance.