Talking With Our Smarties: Q&A

All of our packaging protects food, prevents food waste and ensures the quality and safety of our products. We use a range of materials including glass, metal, paper and plastics, and each decision is carefully considered.

Plastics are uniquely malleable, available, hygienic, lightweight, strong and safe, which makes them ideal for packaging. We have made considerable progress in both minimizing the amount of plastic used to pack products safely and recovering plastic at the end of its useful life. But we know there is more to do as we work towards a waste-free future.

We have introduced a 'Negative List' of non-recyclable or hard-to-recycle materials and a timetable to phase out their use across all of our packaging. We have started to eliminate plastics across a range of materials in our ice cream, confectionery and beverages businesses, and reduced the amount of shrink-wrap we use. We are leading the shift from virgin plastics to food-grade recycled plastics. Aside from PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate), most recycled plastics are not suitable for food packaging, leading to a limited supply of food grade recycled plastics.

We are working with local suppliers as well as the Nestle Institute of Packaging Sciences. Together we are developing and evaluating new materials that are sustainable and can be supported in our recycling infrastructure.

The seven major focus areas for our scientific work on plastics:

• Packaging-free solutions
• Removal of non-recyclable plastics
• Simplification of materials and packaging structures
• Plastic-free packaging / paper
• More recycled content
• Bio-based plastics
• Biodegradable / compostable materials

We also launched a $360 million sustainable packaging venture fund focusing on start-up companies that are developing innovative packaging, refill systems or recycling solutions. In September 2020, we announced a $43 million investment in the Closed Loop Leadership Fund.

Plastic water bottles are 100% recyclable. With our aim to reduce the use of virgin plastics by one-third by 2025, Nestle will increase the amount of recycled PET it uses across its brands globally to 50% by 2025.

It’s a two-year pilot program which gives 20,000 customers in London, Ontario the opportunity to bag up plastic items that can’t currently be recycled, like chocolate bar wrappers and potato chip bags. Nestle Canada is proud to be one of the financial contributors to this interim plastic recovery solution, as we continue to work on ways of innovating our packaging for a waste-free future.

Through the Nestle Institute of Packaging Sciences together with our global R&D network, universities and innovation partners. The Institute will conduct world-class research to fundamentally rethink packaging materials which include exploring the potential of bio-sourced, and biodegradable materials and systems.

Globally, our overall recycled plastic content use is currently 2%. (We use 5% recycled content in our PET water bottles.) And we are committed to increasing the proportion of recycled content we use in our packaging where possible and continue to explore all opportunities to create and obtain sufficient volumes of food-grade quality recycled content. This includes our investment of more than $2.16 billion to pay a premium for these materials and our commitment to source up to 2 million metric tons of food-grade recycled plastics between now and 2025.

By working collaboratively with industry, local and national governments, NGOs and consumers alike. Plastic packaging is often not disposed of properly or cannot be recycled. We are determined to help change this, which is why we are:

• Taking action to improve waste collection systems
• Making our own packaging completely recyclable
• Making recycling an easy thing to do for consumers
• Helping take an active role in improving recycling systems where we operate

We’re committed to raising consumer awareness through educational campaigns and improving the clarity of recycling messaging on our products and packaging.