Incorporation of Post-consumer Recycled Content in Bread Bags

Over the past 2 years, more and more companies have announced goals to increase the amount of recycled content in their packaging.

Several European countries have announced legislation to tax packaging materials that don’t incorporate a minimum recycled content, with the UK Plastic Packaging Tax coming into effect in April 2022, taxing companies for any packaging material not containing at least 30% PCR content. 

By Veronica Ataya, Director, Marketing and Innovation at St. Johns Packaging

These pressures are driving the need for innovative packaging solutions incorporating recycled materials. For the baking industry specifically, there is an added layer of complexity since the solutions need to be suitable for food-contact. 

St. Johns Packaging has been working diligently to improve the environmental impacts of bread bags. The company, based in Canada and founded over 65 years ago, has a strong focus on the bakery market and currently supplies the world’s leading baking companies with polyethylene bags. With plants in Canada, the US, Mexico, China, Vietnam, and more recently in the UK, St. Johns Packaging has a broad understanding of the global bakery market. 

Packaging protects bakery products from contamination, provides physical protection for contents, enhances food safety, extends shelf life, and delivers significant information to customers. Studies prove that eliminating packaging would increase food waste and greenhouse gas emissions exponentially. For instance, 20% more bread would be wasted if it weren’t packaged ^[1]. Development of optimized packaging is critical to limit the negative environmental and economic impacts of generated food waste. 

True sustainable solutions need to consider the full product lifecycle. Plastic waste mismanagement is a huge problem worldwide; however, among all packaging materials, plastic is the most effective one for many food products and for bakery items specifically, such as for bread, buns and tortillas, it is the most sustainable alternative. It requires less energy and water to manufacture compared to paper, and it uses the least amount of material ^[2]. In fact, plastic bread bags only represent 1% of the overall carbon footprint of the product ^[1]. 

Global food waste is at an alarming level, with household waste being the largest contributor ^[3]. It is estimated that US homes waste around 20% of the bread purchased every year ^[4]. The main reason for bread waste is staleness / dryness, and plastic provides the best barrier to minimize moisture loss. It also provides the longest shelf life, which in turn prevents food waste at the retail and household levels. Plastic is a part of solution, not the problem. The challenge is educating consumers, developing collection and recycling programs to eliminate plastic waste in the environment, and increasing the use of recycled plastics. This has been the main area of focus at St. Johns Packaging over the past year, finding ways to incorporate recycled content in bread bags, with the goal of providing a recyclable bread bag with a minimum 30% recycled content.

You can read the rest of this article in the July/August Issue of European Baker & Biscuit magazine, which you can access by clicking here.