Stonyfield Farm: Safe Additives Guide safeguards plastic packaging

The lack of transparency about chemicals used in a company’s supply chain can make product and packaging innovation extremely challenging. Companies trying to address this issue may hear their suppliers claim that the additives they use in their materials are proprietary, as yogurt-maker Stonyfield Farm was told when they launched a new plant-based (PLA) plastic yogurt container. Not wanting to place healthy food in an unhealthy package, the company sought help from Pure Strategies.

Drawing the Line for Suppliers

To lead Stonyfield through the complex world of chemical hazards in plastics, Pure Strategies developed an innovative Safe Additives Guide for the company’s packaging suppliers. The Guide’s purpose was to ensure that the packaging material was free of hazardous additives that could leach out of the PLA plastic into the yogurt.

To prepare the guide, Pure Strategies examined specific substances and classes of chemicals that might be used as additives for PLA plastic. We then screened these substances against a set of stringent health and safety criteria to develop a list of explicitly prohibited chemicals of high concern. Stonyfield suppliers must now verify that no chemicals on the list are present in their materials and the company’s consumers are protected from possible exposure to a variety of hazardous chemicals.

The Client's POV

As Nancy Hirshberg, VP of Natural Resources at the time explained, “We’ve worked with Pure Strategies for over twelve years on projects ranging from carbon footprinting to green chemistry. Most recently, Pure Strategies helped us address the challenge of keeping potentially dangerous plastic additives out of our packaging.

"Pure Strategies developed a technical, but user-friendly tool for our suppliers to use to screen additives so that we could go well beyond FDA requirements in assuring the health and integrity of our packaging. Pure Strategies has been a critical, valued strategic partner in our sustainability initiatives.”

Learn more about this initiative in this article in Packaging World. Learn more about Pure Strategies' approach to chemicals management here.