How Dole and other CPG giants are swapping plastic for paper packages

Kim Galante, global head of product development and innovation at Dole, told Modern Retail that the packaging swap is the first in a company initiative to cut down on plastic. “It’s their first exposure to your brand to the product,” she said. “So, you want to make sure that you have your best foot forward.”

The swap allowed Dole to reduce the amount of plastic per container by 97%, which reduces the amount of plastic in the company’s supply chain by 130 metric tons annually.

Dole is part of a wave of CPG brands looking to cut down on the amount of plastic they use in their packing. The move is particularly gaining steam among global conglomerates. Earlier this week, Vital Proteins debuted a paper-based canister for its collagen peptides jars. The company, acquired by Nestle Health Sciences as of 2022, estimates the swap will remove about 4 million pounds of plastic from its supply chain annually. Over in the United Kingdom, Pepsico this spring rolled out paper packages for several flavors of Snack a Jacks, a move that is said was to reduce its reliance on virgin plastic. It aims to remove fossil-based plastic from all crisp and snack bags by 2030.

Many of the efforts line up with overarching sustainability goals that companies set for themselves. But that’s often driven by consumer demand.

While the efforts of individual companies cannot be discounted, they don’t have the ability to single-handedly change what ends up in the waste stream. Michael Newman, CEO of reusable shipping package company Returnity, said it would ultimately take large-scale institutional changes to materiality or recycling, which may be too onerous and expensive for communities to take on. “As an individual company, you can’t implement system-wide changes alone,” he said. “The idea of one company making it happen is just unrealistic.”

Newman, who is also an advisory council member of the U.S. Plastic Pact that aims to create circular systems for plastic use, said that there are many alternative packaging materials out there to plastic that may not measure up to what a company is used to. They may not be durable enough, or withstand shelf life the same as plastic. Often, other materials can be heavier, which could drive up shipping costs or even having a bigger carbon impact than a plastic product. And at the end life, paper goods that are soiled with food scraps often can’t be recycled, meaning they wind up in the trash the way plastic would anyway.

“There is no perfect in packaging,” he said. “There’s no ideal state where switching from one format to another or changing production methods will solve all your goals.”

Still, there’s no shortage of companies like Dole looking for alternatives — and they’re often willing to to spend a little more money in the name of saying they are removing plastic from their waste stream.

Greg Berguig, president at California-based PAC Machinery, spends significant amounts of his time talking to companies about how to use less plastic. Typically, paper is more expensive, he said. “In consumer-facing products, where there’s a sustainability mandate, companies might offer a bag with 100% recycled resin, even though it’s slightly more expensive,” he said. “It’s often about making a marketing impact.”

But if a company decided to invest in retooling an entire product line, the process can be difficult and requires significant effort, Berguig said. And there are occasional trade-offs to consider, like shelf life. A plastic package, for example, may be able to seal a product and keep it fresh for 180 days, while an alternative may only withstand a third of that time. There could also be delays in getting production underway if packaging equipment needs to purchased or upgraded in order to accommodate a new material. “We have customers asking us to engineer modifications to their machines to switch from plastic to paper, which requires development work or even new equipment to handle different materials,” he said.

At Dole, “we knew how big this project was for us, so we prioritized resources against it,” Galante said.

Internally, Galante said multiple departments and teams had to be in frequent communication with each other to make the swap happen. “It’s really important to make sure that the team is aligned on the scope of what you’re trying to do, so that you can communicate your needs very clearly to your partners,” Galante said.

It took about two years to get the product launched, from the start of the conversations to completion. Dole also tapped third-party vendors to help, including those who could secure the right materials. Galante said it was important to ensure the paper the company used was Forest Stewardship Council -certified, a designation that indicates responsible harvesting standards.

But there were also more practical concerns to contend with. Would the paper be durable enough to hold up in the supply chain? Would it withstand preservation in a freezer? Galant said that there were multiple conversations around the form of the package — and freezers full of test products.

“It did take many, many, many months to get through all of the process steps that we required to ensure that what we ended up delivering to the market was high quality,” she said.

For all the effort to get the Smoothie Bowl on shelves, Dole is continuing to look at what other packages it can swap. Per its website, it has a goal of making all tropical fruit packaging materials recyclable or compostable by 2025. Galante said there are other tests in the works, and Dole staffers are studying what is new or changing in the materials industry.

“There’s lots of new information coming at us all the time,” she said. “So we’re staying on top of that and figuring out how to best apply it to the projects we have activated.”