Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to earthfeed From Soil to Shelf, where packaging expert and yoga enthusiast Kelly.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Williams helps small and medium brands transition to sustainable packaging.
[00:00:11] Speaker A: This podcast is brought to you by Earth First Compostable Packaging Solutions.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: Welcome to the next episode of the Earth Feed podcast From Soil to Shelf. And with us today we have Rob Cotton, Global Director of R and D for PepsiCo. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe PepsiCo is the largest global brand. And if you, are you the largest brand?
[00:00:37] Speaker A: I think we're, we're, we're, we're one or two food and beverage companies. Yes.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Yeah. And then if you take the top 10, it's bigger than like the next 31. So for the 25,000 small and medium sized brand businesses, they may feel like they have nothing in common with you, but I think after this episode they'll realize how much they actually do have in common with you. So to get started, I think maybe just let you tell us a little bit about your experience, your journey, your views on sustainability and packaging.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: Yeah, this has been a fascinating area that we've been really leaning in on over the last, I mean, I guess it goes back to 2009 when we launched the, the first industrial compostable Sunships bag that was famous for being noisy and things. And ever since then we had our R and D teams really working behind the scenes after we took it off the market to continue to iterate around alternative solutions to address that. And really the fundamental premise was before, I guess it was really before the Ellen MacArthur foundation, recyclable, compostable, biodegradable or reusable commitments got made.
And really the focus was how do we create a package that could go away safely and harmlessly to the environment if it inadvertently ends up there. Because ultimately our bags and snack food as a whole, whether it be confectionery or chips, like we produce, is oftentimes eaten away from home. So, you know, let's say in a future state, you know, curbside recycling is absolutely, you know, kind of a critical thing for the plastics industry. And we, we believe that that's absolutely the right thing. But again is will things get collected and recycled if it's eaten away from home? We've had kind of a single minded focus of how do we create something that would be biodegradable because of that. Like, and one of the things that we've been kind of pioneering a lot of the film development in the space on our R and D research budgets because the industry, I guess certainly there's people, Earth first is a great example of kind of pioneering on their own the space, but the market size really there wasn't enough pull from other brands to really drive a lot of the film development like that happens in polyethylene and polypropylene films because there's an automatic market for. One of the things we took on a lot of that work ourselves were to help fund it and partner with everybody in the value chain to make these films be viable.
And what I believe to be true is if we can hit our performance targets, then we can hit most of the industry's performance targets. We have some of the most extreme moisture barrier and oxygen barrier requirements that exist. And so anything less than that is, you know, chances are easier. So confectionary items that are chocolate enrobed that work in cavitated OPP without any metal on it, okay, those are good examples of where we could hit those performance targets a lot easier. If we can hit our targets with the work that we've been doing is really kind of sponsoring, so to speak, by, by using our research dollars to help buy resin, buy film and collaborate across the value stream. And we do have some patents in this space that, that we, that we obtained and but our premise was never to keep it solely proprietary to PepsiCo, but really keep it for right to practice so that no one else can create something that then blocks us from doing it. But we want to share that with the industry. And so we very vocal and being ambassadors to the industry to get others to come with us. So one of the things we've started licensing our technology to different converters so they can take it to other customers. And my offer always is if anybody wants to have a three way discussion and talk about more details of what we're discussing today is absolutely fair game and we're happy to help because while it sounds altruistic, it's also self serving in that if the industry grows, that helps all of us and the bigger player that we are, you know, we just get advantage of scale just like everybody else does. But it's certainly in all of our best interests to grow this space versus us being proprietary. And then it stays small for a long time and then it just stays more expensive and other things. But the only way to really go from a nascent space to like what OPP is today is to grow scale and global volume and things. So we really are trying to get other people to come with us on the journey because it serves us all well. And then the other piece of that is one of the things that it's coming more into fruition. The plastics treaty with the UN and extended producer responsibility taxes across the world is all designed around trying to prevent plastic pollution. And one of the dilemmas is there's a strong belief that recycling is going to fix plastic pollution. And unfortunately, it doesn't really address plastic pollution. The thing that I talk often about is you see plenty of aluminum cans and paper bags and other stuff in the environment too, and they're readily recyclable and seen as the holy grail of what we want to get to in plastics, but they can inadvertently get leaked to the environment in a variety of ways. And so while flexible packaging is more guilty because it's more visible because it floats in rivers and oceans, but it's fundamentally the same issue. The cans sink to the bottom of the ocean. Steel cans are probably littered amongst the ocean floor, but with flexible packaging, it rises to the top and then. And there's more visible to it. But realistically, we need to address plastic pollution fundamentally, or this is where I think we as an industry as a whole have a vested interest in it, because eventually we can get banned from doing what we need to be doing to provide the goods and products to consumers in the most efficient package possible, which flexible packaging is. It's the least amount of packaging per gram of product that we can do. But if it's a pariah because of plastic pollution, then we need to really start addressing openly as an industry, both recycling and leakage to the environment.
[00:07:35] Speaker B: Yeah, that's interesting, because you and I both came up in the plastic side of the industry and, you know, back when, when it was happening, the sustainability benefits of just flexible packaging versus rigid glass, metal, plastic bottles, it was so overwhelmingly positive that no one, those of us knew there's this deep, dark secret that you can't do anything with it afterward. I feel like biodegradable or digestible is the only one that addresses that inevitable leakage based on just entropy alone of the sheer size of the scale.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: No, and that's a great, that's a great way to say it. And that just the entropy is there. And again, can we reduce all that? Absolutely. And we need to, I mean, because it's still valuable commodities that we, we ought to be recycling and returning to a usable form. But that's, that's the fundamental issue is, is how do you get to zero?
[00:08:26] Speaker B: I agree with you, and I'm glad you said that, because I feel like when people say, well, what happens to a compostable package if it ends up in the landfill. My general response is the earth doesn't give a shit. The earth will. As long as the earth can consume it at some point, that's what matters. It's the burden on the planet that we're.
And I get it. So back when we built this thing right, there was a CTQ or critical to quality that we missed, which is bioaccumulation.
And now, now we're here and we have the problem. And I think it feels like we're trying to steer the ship versus just rethinking what got us here. And it's. I just cannot applaud PepsiCo enough for what you've done because your Lay's potato chip bag is one of the most sophisticated packaging engineering structures on the planet. It's so much has gone into that. And to say, hey team, we're going to go do it again and we're going to make it home compostable and we're going to do it, it's just such a bold challenge and you're getting there. You've done it, in my opinion. But more refinement to come, but you've done it and I just can't applaud you enough for having done that.
[00:09:36] Speaker A: No, I appreciate that.
And the whole team that's been working on this for many years and when I got involved in the program more actively five or six years ago and really got kind of put in to lead the team doing it, I didn't believe we could get there. I was one of the non believers and rightfully so in that the polymers that we now have, we didn't have back then. And that's one of the other exciting things about being in this whole space is the amount of invention that's happening so rapidly because of the nascent of the industry, but also just the spirit of entrepreneurship across the suppliers. Everybody in the value chain has been really amazing to me.
The polymers and coatings and things that we're using today didn't, weren't, you know, were invented in the last few years and, and that's enabled it to be successful. But, but having that ask and giving people the permission that hey, if you build it, they will come and you know, by asking for it, it really helped enable the industry to, you know, to try to tackle these very difficult problems to solve.
[00:10:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm really, I'm glad to hear you say that because it seems to me that we have, we've gone. So the people that produce the printed roll stock that go onto your machines, there's fewer of them, they've gotten bigger just through normal mergers and acquisitions, much like brands we've seen get bigger as well. So radical innovation or exploratory research and the packaging side is not what it used to be.
[00:11:12] Speaker A: Well, and just to echo on that point is, I think that's one thing that we strived. I guess one of our table stakes associated with, in the development of these materials was, was a couple things, is we need to do everything we can to operate on existing asset infrastructure. Because if you, if you put, if you put another hurdle as, oh, and then you just have to make all brand new equipment. And then on our filling side, if we had to have new bag makers to be able to run this stuff, again, that you're just, it's just another hurdle to overcome and an economic hurdle that, that becomes unsurmountable really. And so that's what I applaud the industry is we've been able to develop materials that run on our polyethylene and polypropylene existing assets. And then our bag makers, same way that they run just fine on those existing assets.
Maybe slightly different temperature settings, but certainly runs just as efficiently. So it doesn't require a lot of capital investment on the brand owner side.
[00:12:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So I, I guess with that it.
So you decide you're going to reinvent, for example, a lay's potato chip bag, which has this phenomenal engineering in it, and you set out to do that. And, and I'm curious too, what. When I hear people say home compostable, I feel like that's a proxy word for I need it to not be litter.
It's kind of, that's certainly.
[00:12:41] Speaker A: Yeah, that's certainly our intention. And the one thing that we've also over the last really year, year and a half, really started changing our own internal language is when we were talking about compostable and recyclable materials, it was a very binary discussion. People thought, oh, okay, well, that's recyclable. Oh, this is, this is compostable. And one of the things we're trying to demonstrate now is those compostable materials are not binary. They, you know, they could be degraded is if they end up as litter, they can be safer. The environment, they can go to industrial composting, if that exists. If somebody wants to take on the challenge of home composting their vegetables and scraps and things in their home, they would fit in that environment. And then the big one is. And they could be mechanically recycled and biopolymers are a tiny fraction of that. And so it's not ideal, but it's not detrimental in that system. And so we've done pilot work and now we're working on scaling that up to larger scale units to demonstrate that these biopolymers and bioplastics that are biodegradable specifically will fit within that infrastructure and not cause harm. And that way then we have an outlet, an additional outlet for it.
I think there was a lot of thought leadership early on about, okay, well, we know food waste is going to need to be collected because we need to be diverting things from landfill. And food waste is the biggest source of methane generation and greenhouse gases. And the volume of food in landfills versus plastic waste is, I think it's something like 70% more is food waste versus plastic waste. But with that, if you start diverting it, where does food waste go? It could go to composting, but it can also go to things like anaerobic digestion. And so if we can make polymers, and some of the polymers we're using will fit well within those systems too, as we evolve them so that it just has a variety of end of life versus just saying it's compostable, it really is multifaceted from an end of life standpoint versus conventional plastics.
[00:14:58] Speaker B: It's like recyclable, compostable, or preferably both. And I think there's a misconception that biopolymers aren't recyclable. In fact, they're very recyclable. PLA goes back to lactic acid pretty easily. So I think there actually is an opportunity to use advanced recycling with biopolymers. So I'm curious what your thoughts are on that.
[00:15:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I think the reason we're kind of touting pyrolysis as a first step in advanced recycling is because of just the nature of the size and scale of the conventional plastics industry. But once we really in a future state where we've successfully created collection sortation systems for all of these materials, bioplastics, if you get a pile of them, if you correctly collect and sort and separate them out, then as that scale gets bigger and bigger with people adopting this technology, then you have alternative advanced recycling systems like you described at Enzymatic or other things, to take it back to the polymer. These are condensation polymers that all can be easily recycled back into their feedstocks and go back into virgin materials, just like polyolefin. So absolutely, it probably doesn't make sense to put that infrastructure in with the size of the industry today. But as it grows as it should grow and will naturally grow, then there'll be those systems available as well and those will be highly efficient because biological processes are far more efficient than chemical processes. Just look at your own human body kind of thing and it's an amazing piece of biology.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: But in the experience, having gone through this and everything that you've learned, any takeaways that you did right or things you would do differently because in a lot of ways you're bringing a supply chain together that generally doesn't work together this way. And I'm just curious if there's any takeaways. And then also I'm curious on your thoughts on. Because I really want the small medium sized brands to realize that, that you're, you're not so far away from where they are that there's, that we're all in this together and how did they, how did they help you help them? How do we do this together? So curious your thoughts there?
[00:17:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Let's start with the first one on what would we have done differently? I think we tried to, I know in the early stages we tried to fix everything. So we were very focused on everything needs to be bio based so that has the least amount of greenhouse gas footprint and everything needs to be as efficient as physically possible. We were trying to paint this, you know, future vision. But then when, when I came along, we were trying to commercialize some of this stuff is like hey, it needs to run well. And so we need to, we need to do, we need to back off on some of our criteria. Now we, the big thing is we mentioned barrier before and, and, and we're not, we're not at the barrier levels that we have in opp but we're very close. And, and one thing I know is, and part of my selfishness of getting other people to come along with us is the longer we run commercially and long runs like our polyolefins films run when you're running every day it gets better naturally just because steady state. So anybody who runs a manufacturing process, if you can keep transitions to a minimum and just run longer, things line out and, or you identify gaps and you can go address those gaps. But you got to run a large amount of volume before you really understand what, what are the gaps there and so forth. But I know, I know our performance properties are going to just continue to get better as we scale and that some of that is natural and some of it will be technological improvements. But a lot of this is scale is our friend and in this case.
[00:18:57] Speaker B: Of getting better and look PepsiCo, Frito lay in particular, you guys are the kings of barrier, because your product requires such sophisticated barrier. And just to put it in perspective, and you can correct any of the numbers I'm about to say, but I believe I have heard anyway, that if you took that section of the Walmart, the salty snack section of Walmart, and you took those shelves and stacked them end to end, those shelves would run from Boston to Los Angeles. And Frito lay has about 51% of that real estate. So like 5 trillion square inches of print real estate is what you're doing. And to get to a place that you can say we're almost to the same barrier that we get with conventional fossil plastics, I want to reemphasize that point because that's really, really important. So how do small brands take advantage of all that wonderful work that you've done on the materials development side so that they can put their snack chips in something that's more sustainable and they're not going to risk their brand in the process?
[00:19:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that my advice would be, is call your converter, because chances are they're the same converters that we're using or, or reach out and we'll put you in touch with the right people to go get started.
The thing that's challenging and no matter what in any economic times is because of the nascent of the industry, it's more expensive than the current because we've had 50 years of optimization and we continue to optimize. The current structures are still getting cheaper every year because of that optimization. So we're starting from another point. But again, try piloting, try find those channels or markets or events that allow you to get started.
And it does two things. One is it shows the industry, it gives credence to the industry that, hey, we're on the right path, keep innovating, keep inventing new polymers, because there's more than just PepsiCo out there who wants them.
I think we can change the face of legislation in the future if we all get behind this. Because again, if we can really start talking about the elephant in the room of leakage and not just talk about recycling, it's both. And we absolutely need recycling. But at least if we start addressing what the public outcry is over plastics and that we can address those things, then we can start changing. Because the one thing about extended producer responsibility is going to hit all of us. Anybody selling goods or services is going to pay those fees, and those fees end up being up and down the value chain. So Everybody in the audience is going to have some role to play in epr. And so we've got to start educating legislation and the public about alternative solutions. Not so much that we pay less epr, that would be great, but that we at least enable future legislation so we don't get banned and have to move to a glass jar instead of an efficient flexible packaging. So those are in all of our best interests. And, and that's, like I said, that's part of the reason to, to get this message out to the audience is to get other people on board so that we, we march down the same pathway.
[00:22:11] Speaker B: And I couldn't agree more. And I feel like I've been to a couple of smaller brand events recently and it seems like there's an awareness that they can get compostable packaging, pouches, bags.
I think it's the biggest thing they worry about is, is it's like I'm willing to pay more to wrap my sustainable product in a sustainable package. I believe in it as a brand owner, but I'm not willing to risk my brand in case it doesn't work. And shelf life, there's no shortcut to knowing. So I think the work you guys are doing to build a barrier package of something that needs, that's such. So sophisticated in its barrier requirements, I should hopefully give some reassurance to those, to the smaller brands out there that look what. We've come a long way in the development of these materials.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: And what's one of the things. We were looking at some of our just recent data as an example and looked at our data from 2009 through 2011 on the Sunship package that we had in market for a long time. And our barrier is almost twice as good as that was then. And it was fine in market. We didn't have consumer complaints over stale chips or anything.
[00:23:22] Speaker B: And you're right. When you're running it at scale and you're doing it every day, any random sample you grab out of Something that's running 2,000ft a minute, it should be the same. Right. So we're getting it. So I think it's really just. I wanted you to help me reassure this audience that, look, we've come a long way, the materials are there. If PepsiCo can make a lace potato chip bag work, then that should give everyone a lot of hope and excitement that we really can come up with something that's sustainable. One last closing question on recycling. Recycling. And I kind of, I really wish we would stop using the word recycling when it comes to Mechanical because it's repurposing. You're not going to take a Doritos bag and turn it into another Doritos bag. Chemical recycling potentially.
But the what's required to go to a monomaterial world versus in compostables there's actually a preference for mixed materials. The performance is better, the compostability is better. But this I feel like actually from a designing barrier packaging. Compostable materials I think have some advantages over conventional materials. If you have to go in the direction of a mono material.
[00:24:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's very true. And I like the way you described it because the one thing that plastic packaging is being held to a higher standard than any other material. So aluminum cans, we didn't care that that aluminum can came from aluminum. From another can it came from aluminum. It could have been aluminum foil, it could have been whatever.
Steel that way, paperboard that way. But plastics, we expect it to be bag to bag or bottle to bottle.
[00:25:06] Speaker B: So maybe another thought here that maybe you could shed some light on is it seems like I don't know that that the smaller brands are maybe as aware of the scope emissions and the role that that's going to play. And so I always think of the old bucks bunny cartoons where they throw the baseball and it goes around the world and comes back with all the passport stamps on it. We can't do that anymore. You know, like it's going to be increasingly tough to do that. So how does decarbonization as a general global drive, how does that factor into packaging materials?
[00:25:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's another one that again I think the perfect is the enemy of the good. Like where flexible packaging is so efficient it has a very low greenhouse gas footprint. And so while it's challenged in some things it is a very efficient package. And a low greenhouse gas footprint fundamentally just in the nature of weight. Weight is a huge factor. Energy, you know, energy probably the two drivers behind greenhouse gas emissions. And we have the least amount of mass per gram of product that we're trying to ship. So that, that that has an inherent advantage. And then. And it only gets better if you use biosources and things at the moment the industry. Another knock on the biopolymer biodegradable polymer industry is the greenhouse gas footprint is higher than than fossil fuel based. But it goes back to. It's just the nascy of the industry. The petroleum industry has billion pound per year trains and highly energy efficient in its size and scale. Where biopolymers are just new and scattered a little bit around the world, but there's no reason to believe that once we get to scale, those numbers come down dramatically and will be more.
It will be beneficial for the planet in that regard.
[00:27:07] Speaker B: Yep, I would agree. And again, that's one of the things that we do. We're trying to take these pieces of innovation and make them accessible to the brands that really can commercialize them pretty quickly. And in the end, that helps all of us. It helps us preserve the path. It helps you do what you need to do because you've got 5 trillion square inches of real estate to cover, and you need that help.
[00:27:32] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great point. And that thing is, we are a big ship, so it's harder to get us to turn. But I think there's a lot of really innovative small companies that can take advantage of this quickly and start rapidly learning. And that's one thing that I think we all need to do is share those learning and learn from each other. In the area of sustainability.
It should be all open sourcing because we all have our planet's best interests at heart. And so let's do that together. And whatever we can do to share our learnings. Happy to. And vice versa. As people try stuff and struggle, let's work together to figure that out as an industry, because it behooves us all to go in the same direction.
[00:28:17] Speaker B: Couldn't agree more, Rob. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
[00:28:21] Speaker A: Thanks so much.
[00:28:22] Speaker B: All right, thanks, man. Take care.
[00:28:24] Speaker A: This podcast is brought to you by Earth First Compostable Packaging Solutions.
