Quick service restaurant company Yum Brands plans to accelerate efforts to remove Styrofoam and expanded polystyrene foam globally from consumer-facing packaging. The move means phasing out foam packaging completely across all KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell locations worldwide by 2022.
Previous Yum Brands sustainable packaging efforts included becoming a supporting partner of the NextGen Consortium, which is working to advance food-service packaging solutions that are recoverable across global infrastructures. Yum Brands also vowed to source 100% of fiber-based packaging from certified or recycled sources by the end of this year.
Individual brands set targets as well. At the beginning of 2019, KFC pledged to make all its plastic-based, consumer-facing packaging recoverable or reusable by 2025. Taco Bell started using recyclable cold cups and lids in all its restaurants last year. In January, Taco Bell committed to making all of its consumer-facing packaging recyclable, compostable, or reusable worldwide by 2025.
The nonprofit group As You Sow wanted the quick service restaurant company to go farther, though. A shareholder proposal they filed in 2019 urging the phase-out of expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam received support from 33% of shares voted, worth $7.1 billion, the organization said.
“EPS foam is used mostly for side dish takeout containers in about 40 of Yum’s global markets, including 4,000 US locations and 2,700 non-US locations,” according to As You Sow. Phasing out EPS foam is expected to eliminate the use of at least 100 million foam containers annually for the company.
“A report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation New Plastics Economy Project endorsed by major brands including Coca-Cola, Danone, Mars, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, and Unilever, recommended phase out of expanded polystyrene, calling it a substance of concern and stating that its replacement would enhance the economics of recycling,” As You Sow noted.
Other companies in the quick service industry have also moved to phase out foam containers. McDonald’s made the decision at the end of 2018, and Dunkin’ Brands set a 2020 deadline for foam cups.
In order to transform its packaging suite, Taco Bell is collaborating with sister brands, suppliers, franchisees, and industry partners around the globe, the brand’s manager of global nutrition and sustainability Missy Schaaphok told Environment + Energy Leader recently.
“We have great relationships with our suppliers,” she said. “It’s not like they’re waiting for us to ask them for ideas. They’re proactively reaching out and showing us new innovations, technologies, substrates, things we’d never heard of before. We are leveraging them a lot.”
