Ready Pac's salad days increases sustainability efforts
By Canadian Packaging Staff
Sustainability Fabrication Sustainability Ready Pac Foods recycled plastic bottles recycles beverage bottlesSalad packaging production from Ready Pac Foods to use more than 56,000,000 recycled plastic beverage bottles this year.
Irwindale, CA—Fresh food marketer Ready Pac Foods, Inc. is celebrating yet another achievement on its bowl salad line.
After launching its Ready Pac Bistro Organic bowl salads—new SKUs (stock-keeping units) for the conventional line and new private label bowl salads—the company says it is on track to use more than 56 million recycled plastic beverage bottles to create its product packaging in 2013.
“When Ready Pac created the bowl salad line our first requirement was that the packaging used would deliver the necessary shelf life to meet or exceed our customers’ requirements, and the second was to make it easy for a consumer to see how fresh the product is,” says company director of marketing and corporate communications Tristan Simpson.
“Since then, we have made continuous improvements over time to create a more sustainable bowl salad package, and the net effect is we’re making a significant contribution to helping the environment.”
Each Ready Pac bowl salad package, including the insert that separates protein ingredients and condiments from the salad greens, contains 60 percent post-consumer recycled content—slightly more than one recycled 500 mL beverage bottle per package.
As well, the salad bowls and inserts are produced in plants powered by 50 per cent solar energy.
Ready Pac says that when the energy savings of using recycled bottles are combined with the solar energy savings versus conventional power, each Ready Pac bowl salad package saves about 1,000 BTUs or 0.30 kilowatt hours of electric power.
This energy savings is enough to run a traditional 100 watt light bulb for about three hours, or an energy-saving 26 watt/ 1300 lumen bulb for 26 hours.
California-based Ready Pac is a premier producer of convenience fresh foods including fresh-cut produce. With processing facilities throughout the U.S., its award-winning salads, snacks, fresh-cut fruit and vegetables are distributed in supermarkets and restaurant chains across North America.
For more information, visit www.readypac.com.
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