OSC2 Packaging Coalition 2015 Year in Review

by Lara Dickinson

We at OSC2 and our community of leaders had another great year with our compostable packaging movement.  While we do so many things at OSC2 around fixing our food system, our Packaging Coalition is perhaps, the most visible.  This is because truly sustainable, responsible packaging is an achilles heel for most of our incredibly responsible community of food leaders.  We continue to make progress on our shared goal of reducing and removing petroleum based plastic from our food system, landfills, and our oceans.  Our secret sauce is collaboration.  And vigorously sharing the hope and possibility of what better packaging can mean for all of us (this is not just idealistic- there is a financial benefit to packaging companies and even food companies to solve this problem).

In 2015 we:

• Grew to 25 member companies between brands and packaging companies working toward a compostable food packaging solution
• Brought in Biobag to help us identify and secure the best materials on the resin side
• Continued our partnership with an amazing group of packaging leaders at Innovia, Associated and Elk Design and have continued to benefit from their dedicated work and shared vision
• Developed a certifications roadmap and will continue to work toward stronger certifications approaches and programs in the US for sustainable packaging materials
• Partnered with Clemenson University to further strengthen our shelf life and package integrity testing for stand up pouches.
• Presented our collaborative work toward sustainable packaging and all of our amazing members and packaging companies who have come together at So Cap, Esca Bona, Net Impact and the Zero Waste Summit
• Shared Numi initial success with overwrap compostable pouches with overwrap partners
• Shared a communication system developed by Alter Eco as a potential industry compostable package  – “GONE 4 Good”

And perhaps best of all

• Developed 5 original stand up pouch compostable structures we are testing across 12 different ingredients
• Jeanne from Alter Eco, Gretchen Grani from Nutiva, and Lara and a couple of dedicated temps hand packed, sealed, labeled and shipped our members bags to our shelf testing partner facility

Next up:

• Full shelf testing of our new stand up pouches containing many different ingredients including:  Sugar, coconut sugar, two kinds of granola, dry pasta meals, chia seeds, chocolate, jerky, baby puffs, yogurt melts, walnuts, and rice.

Special thanks to Mat Senard and Jeanne Cloutier from Alter Eco and Ahmed and Brian Durkee from Numi for their continued vision, leadership, and work toward a radical packaging solution on behalf of our food system.

We are making history by doing things differently. Out of silos.  This is too big for any one company or person to solo win….this is where it gets good to be apart of the good food movement.