The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: CO) and H.J. Heinz Company (NYSE: HNZ) today announced a strategic partnership that enables Heinz to produce its ketchup bottles using Coca-Cola’s PlantBottleTM packaging.
The PET plastic bottles are made partially (up to 30%) from plant materials and have a lower reliance on non-renewable resources compared with traditional PET plastic bottles. Currently, PlantBottle is made using sugarcane ethanol from Brazil.
Heinz said its adoption of the PlantBottle technology will be the biggest change to its iconic ketchup bottles since they first introduced plastic in 1983.
"Heinz Ketchup is going to convert to PlantBottle globally, beginning with our best-selling 20-ounce variety of Heinz Ketchup, which will reach consumers this summer," said Heinz Chairman, President and CEO William R. Johnson.
Heinz will launch PlantBottle in all 20-ounce ketchup bottles in June with "talking labels" asking, "Guess what my bottle is made of?" Packaging will be identified by a special logo and on-pack messages.
Switching to PlantBottle is a step in Heinz’s global sustainability initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, solid waste, water consumption and energy usage at least 20% by 2015.
Coca-Cola first launched PlantBottle in 2009 across multiple brands, reducing the company’s dependence on non-renewable resources. An initial life-cycle analysis conducted by Imperial College London showed that the use of PlantBottle packaging provides a 12%-19%reduction in carbon impact.
In 2010, the use of this bioplastic packaging eliminated the equivalent of almost 30,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide, or approximately 60,000 barrels of oil, Coca-Cola said in its most recent CSR report.
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It is awesome to see big business stepping up in the last few years to make changes in areas that affect our lives. I saw some report recently on some news show like fox news and The Journal with Joan lunden on PBS that were talking about the importance of industry stepping it up in recycling. If other companies begin to follow Heinz and coke, over time it could drastically reduce effects we will see in the future.