The plastic bags, cardboard boxes and individual wrappers used for packaging the company’s more than 21 brands of bread, buns, bagels, English muffins, sweet baked goods and snacks will be recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025
Image: Bimbo Bakeries USA commits to 100% sustainable packaging. Photo: courtesy of congerdesign from Pixabay.
Bimbo Bakeries USA, the US arm of the Mexican bakery products manufacturing firm Grupo Bimbo, has committed to 100% sustainable packaging for its entire product portfolio by 2025.
The baking company said that plastic bags, cardboard boxes and individual wrappers used for packaging the company’s more than 21 brands of bread, buns, bagels, English muffins, sweet baked goods and snacks will be recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025.
Bimbo Bakeries USA’s latest initiative forms part of Grupo Bimbo’s global commitment to sustainable packaging across its entire portfolio across the world by 2025. Grupo Bimbo has a presence in 32 countries.
Bimbo Bakeries USA president Fred Penny said: “For years, we have taken steps to reduce the plastic used in our packaging and we are now committing to ensuring that packaging we have in the market does not make it to landfill or our oceans.”
To reach its sustainable goal, the baking company has partnered with a US-based waste management company TerraCycle to make its packaging easily recyclable beginning 1 January 2020.
Penny said: “We have already diverted more than 5 million Little Bites pouches from landfill through TerraCycle and look forward to including the rest of our portfolio in this important program.”
The TerraCycle programme allows customers to save their Bimbo Bakeries USA product packaging by printing out a free shipping label and sending it for recycling.
Furthermore, the programme allows schools and other non-profit community groups to qualify to receive $.02 per submitted piece of packaging for their organisations.
Some of the initiatives taken by Bimbo Bakeries USA
The company has reduced the usage of plastic by more than a million pounds since 2018. The firm’s manufacturing facilities have also diverted more than 95% of waste from landfill.
Additionally, the company said that its 360 vehicles used alternative fuel such as propane, compressed natural gas, and electricity.
Penny further added: “For more than a decade, we have been executing a strategy internally and with suppliers to reduce our waste and resource consumption, recycle and find innovative ways to accelerate our sustainable practices.
“Announcing our commitment to 100% sustainable packaging by 2025 on National Recycling Day is one more critical action.”
In August this year, the baking company has recalled Entenmann’s Little Bites Soft Baked Cookies over the potential presence of visible blue plastic pieces in the individual packaging pouch.