McCormick's goal is to achieve 100% circular plastics packaging (reused, recycled or repurposed) in consumer products. To underscore our goal, we signed the New Plastics Economy Commitment led by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation to commit to creating circular plastic packaging to eliminate plastic pollution.
Sustainable Packaging
McCormick is committed to reducing the environmental impact from our plastic packaging by decreasing our associated carbon footprint and eliminating plastic packaging that cannot be recycled, reused or repurposed.
Global Packaging Initiatives
At McCormick, we’ve introduced sustainable packaging to select product lines over time and have learned firsthand how sustainable packaging drives profitability. For example, our packaging commitments are partially underpinned by ongoing light-weighting efforts, which reduces both the packaging carbon footprint and direct costs to the business. Now, when a new product design is called for, our packaging team ensures that sustainability is embedded in the decision-making process.
One award-winning product re-design was our food color bottles which, through the utilization of 100% post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastic, appealed strongly to our consumers. The new McCormick Assorted and Neon Food Color bottles began appearing on shelves across North America in July 2022, and shortly afterwards received an AmeriStar Award for best practice in the Food (Shelf Stable) category. We’re also proud to begin rolling out the utilization of 50% PCR across McCormick’s everyday herbs and spices through 2023, which will reduce the carbon footprint of our current bottles by approximately 18-23% across sizes.
We’ve introduced upwards of 146 initiatives across all geographies to help us meet our sustainable packaging goals. We’ve also replicated successful initiatives across our global regions. Not only will these initiatives propel us towards achieving our goals, but new product innovation also strengthens our relevance with consumers and differentiates our brand.
Our global packaging team identifies targets utilizing our global packaging Purpose-led Performance database to demonstrate progress and risks. All regions have agreed to use a Comparative Packaging Assessment software tool, and this is used to calculate sustainability impact as we consider packaging material and process choices.
Global Disruptive Innovation Team
McCormick’s Global Disruptive Innovation Team has been created to look internally and externally for category-wide disruptive packaging and technical innovations. Staffed cross-functionally, including representation from packaging, marketing, product R&D and supply chain, this team works together to harness innovative thinking and heighten its impact.
While we’ve made strides to meet our packaging goals, our Global Disruptive Team has been challenged to search for new materials, technologies and processes to capture incremental environmental benefits from our package design process.
A key area of focus for the team is finding new solutions to improve our packaging formats. For instance, packaging recyclability is a key consumer concern and working with leading packaging suppliers has allowed McCormick to develop recyclable solutions for our products, including fully recyclable packaging for our recipe mix line in the UK.
In April 2021, McCormick Australia joined the Redcycle™ Product Stewardship Program, a sustainable packaging initiative designed to provide an innovative recovery and recycling solution for post-consumer flexible plastic packaging through a national network of retail drop-off points. As a result, all McCormick Foods packaging can now be diverted from landfills and recycled to build roads to support Australia’s infrastructure, as well as numerous outdoor products.
At McCormick, we’re innovating with the consumer in mind, which has led our Global Disruptive Innovation Team to explore broad sustainability experiences inclusive of agricultural technology, vertical farming and controlled growing as well as novel processing methods to ensure consumers are cooking with flavors that they enjoy.