Sabic and Ella’s Kitchen, the UK’s number one baby food brand, have together created a new pouch cap made from recycled plastic. The cap, produced by Gualapack, a leading producer of spouted pouches in the babyfood segment, is made from certified circular polymers from Sabic’s Trucircle portfolio of circular materials and services. It will be featured on over 3.5 million pouches of Ella’s Kitchen’s Organic Strawberries and Apples pouches and will be on the shelves in UK stores from January 2022.
Ella’s Kitchen is the first company in the baby food category to use certified circular polymers from Sabic’s Trucircle portfolio. The company’s decision to do so is part of its wider packaging commitments to lower the environmental impact of its packaging and to make all of its packaging widely recyclable by 2024.
“Protecting the planet for future generations is a top priority for us at Ella’s Kitchen. That’s why we are proud to partner with SABIC to work on innovative ways for how we can lower the environmental footprint of our packaging by introducing recycled content. We hope that industry continues to focus and invest in advanced recycling to increase the availability of the material which is what is really needed to unlock lasting change,” said Chris Jenkins, Runs The Good Stuff We Do (Sustainability + Corporate Communications) at Ella’s Kitchen.
Regarding food-grade recycled materials, which are virtually unobtainable through mechanical recycling processes, chemical or advanced recycling is a gamechanger.
Sabic’s certified circular polymers are produced by means of the advanced recycling of mixed and used plastic. A pyrolysis process enables difficult-to-recycle used plastic to be broken down into its chemical building blocks to produce pyrolysis oil, which is then used as feedstock to create certified circular polymers.
Sabic's circular polymers are certified under the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification Plus (ISCC PLUS) scheme following a mass balance approach. This widely recognised international sustainability certification verifies that the mass balance accounting follows predefined and transparent rules. In addition, it provides traceability along the supply chain, from the feedstock to the final product.