Packaging suppliers may not always have great visibility into the retail sector’s most pressing needs. A new collaboration aims to bridge that gap.
The Sustainable Packaging Coalition’s Retailer Forum was founded on the premise that while retail private brands have huge scale, their sustainable packaging progress can only be as successful as the formats their suppliers produce.
Leaders from SPC, Amazon and Walmart addressed how they’re trying to present a more unified message to suppliers during discussions April 22-23 at SPC Impact in Nashville, Tennessee.
A new way of soliciting innovation
SPC launched the forum last year with participation from Amazon, Walmart, Target and CVS Health. The first round revealed that these retail giants largely aligned on their private-label packaging challenges.
Consultant Brandi Parker worked with representatives from the retailers to anonymously rank and define their challenges and needs.
Packaging suppliers would sometimes indicate they weren’t necessarily hearing a certain need from these types of customers, “so this was also a way for us to create this united voice and say, ‘no really, we need to innovate on this stuff,’” Parker said.
The forum’s initial request sought innovations around flexible films with low-barrier requirements, with priority to “widely recyclable” alternatives. The process yielded four finalists from nine suppliers’ submissions, according to SPC Director Olga Kachook. Individual retailers then had the opportunity to meet with individual suppliers. SPC expects to repeat this design sprint format going forward.
GreenBlue Executive Director Nowak said that other retailers have expressed interest, but SPC wanted to do a test run with a smaller group. “We will be slowly expanding it,” he said.
Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
The expansiveness of private brand packaging presents unique challenges, given diversity in packaging types, materials and selling regions. “In the morning you may be solving a blister pack for OTC, and by the afternoon you're doing heavy-bulky for bed frames,” said Amazon’s Matt Swenson, senior sustainability specialist in waste and circular solutions.
Despite the competitive nature of the retail environment, it was validating to discover that private label packaging leaders across retailers were identifying similar sustainability sticking points, forum participants said. “We are actually a lot of likeminded people,” said Walmart’s Cheryl Lam, director of sustainability and structural packaging.
There’s already a lot of good packaging innovation out there, Lam said, but whether it’s a good fit for the retail landscape is a separate question.
When retailers came together, discussions emphasized “there’s not one common definition for what sustainable packaging is,” Swenson said. “There’s so many different pros and cons that we need to balance,” which required defining “good innovation” for suppliers.
When communicating to the supply chain, this retailer collaboration is “amplifying the signal” on what retailers need. Without it, “we’re all going to be asking for different types of documentation” and “talking to different people,” Swenson said. It’s “not just slow and inefficient, it’s wasteful,” he said. “We’re here to drive out waste.”
What’s next: Lightweighted containers, bottles and closures
The forum’s next order of business is seeking innovative containers, bottles and closures that help support source reduction efforts. This could span beverage, personal care, home care or pharmaceutical bottles, as well as caps, pumps or spray closures. SPC has issued this next brief to suppliers; R&D submissions will be accepted through July 10.
Retailers’ prioritization of bottles and containers came as a bit of a surprise to Kachook, given that they’re often widely recyclable. But “it's a natural fit for finding some source reduction wins for that format,” she said in an interview with Packaging Dive.
Innovations must meet a number of parameters, including demonstrating aspects of recyclability, from collection access to end market demand. Rigid plastics are common in these applications, but SPC says it will consider paper and other alternative materials “if they are scalable and competitive in price to current standards.” Additionally, innovations “must run on existing assets and machines,” per the brief.
Other specific parameters spelled out in the brief include meeting labeling restrictions under California’s SB 343, and anticipating compliance with California’s SB 54 requirements that ramp up toward an at least 30% plastic recycling rate by 2028.
Submissions will be assessed against a rubric weighing reduction of virgin content and lightweighting, regulatory claims, operational fit, scalability and and recyclability evidence.
Kachook said the benefits of the “fast and furious” process transcend the forum itself. Creating these briefs “forces a lot of clarity about what the industry needs and how it judges or assesses what ‘good’ looks like,” Kachook said. It lends clarity on what retailers need suppliers to have in place in order to work with them.
Kachook believes this can help suppliers make stronger pitches to retailers going forward.
“I'm hoping that there’s some longevity to the briefs in that way,” she said. “You can continue to reference [what good looks like] for low-barrier, flexible films, for these private label categories for retailers going forward, even as we move into other categories and briefs.”
