Designing safe products for the circular economy
Packaging plays a fundamental role in protecting food. It guarantees food safety and hygiene, helps prevent food waste and gives access to food by supporting easy and efficient delivery.
At Huhtamaki, we want to become the first choice in sustainable food packaging solutions, and we believe that transitioning to a circular economy is the key to unlocking sustainability. In this transition, the change starts from our product design and innovation, and is reflected throughout the entire life-cycle of our products. We value digitalization as a major driver to achieving circularity, for example by enabling materials to be correctly sorted for recycling, and have therefore incorporated digitalization in our strategy to help achieve our sustainability ambitions.
Designing for circularity offers exciting opportunities to develop new packaging solutions to address the needs of our society. However, we are also clear that when making choices in the product design phase, for example regarding the choice of materials or the structure of the packaging, there can never be a compromise on the safety and quality of the final product that is to be used in food contact. Product safety is non-negotiable and managing food contact safety is at the core of our sustainable packaging solutions for food.
Our ambitions related to circularity and product safety are as follows:
Designing for circularity
2030 goals
100% of products designed to be recyclable, compostable or reusable
>80% renewable or recycled materials by 2030
100% of fiber from recycled or certified sources by 2030
Performance in 2022
72% of our products fulfilled these criteria*
65.8% of total materials were renewable or recycled materials
98.0% of fiber-based materials were from recycled or certified sources
Product safety
2030 goals
All our products comply with Huhtamaki Global Food Contact Packaging Safety Policy
Zero food contact compliance related claims reported
Performance in 2022
Digitalization project of food contact material (FCM) compliance documentation continued
Cross-functional global FCM team in place for knowledge sharing and compliance across markets globally
Zero significant incidents of non-compliance reported
*Any claim or classification is a general statement and does not imply that a product can be recycled or composted currently everywhere globally. Ability to be recycled or composted will depend on the specificities of the recycling programs that consumers or other stakeholders have access to in each market or geography. As such, the statement does not constitute a recyclability or compostability claim according to ISO14021, the FTC Green Guides, the ICC guidance, or any other national, state or local law, regulation or standard. Further information about compostability or recyclability for specific products, markets or geographies shall be obtained. Independent expert legal advice should be considered before making composting or recyclability claims in specific markets or geographies or for any specific product.