Food Processing - February 2008 - (Page 39)

Score uppliers learn the Beginning this month, the retailer’s packaging scorecard helps suppliers gauge the relative sustainability of their packaging. Wal-Mart By Kate Bertrand Connolly, Packaging Editor By now, any food processor that expects to sell products through wal-Mart stores Inc. (www.walmartstores.com), Bentonville, ark., has filled out the wal-Mart packaging scorecard, a tool the retailer developed to evaluate package sustainability. feb. 1 was the scorecard’s go-live date – the date by which all suppliers to wal-Mart and its sam’s club subsidiary were to have entered their packaging data into the scorecard system. the retailer’s 2,000 private label suppliers started working with the scorecard in february 2007. By last september, more than 3,400 of the company’s suppliers were working with the scorecard and had entered more than 13,000 products into the scorecard system, said John fleming, wal-Mart’s chief merchandising officer, speaking at the carbon disclosure project last fall. “there are suppliers of all sizes included in that number,” he added. the wal-Mart packaging scorecard evaluates the sustainability of packaging based on nine dimensions: greenhouse gas emissions related to production, material value, ratio of servings to packaging, cube utilization, recycled content, innovation, the amount of renewable energy used to manufacture the packaging, recovery value of the raw materials and, finally, emissions related to transporting the packaging materials. these criteria help wal-Mart suppliers determine how their packaging innovations, environmental standards, energy efficiency and materials compare to others in their category. each stock keeping unit (sKU) requires its own scorecard, and suppliers receive a score per package relative to competitive packages. the scorecard considers primary and secondary packaging as well as transport packaging such as pallets. the scorecard effort has been led by the walMart packaging sustainable Value network (sVn), a group of more than 300 leaders in the global packaging industry. the packaging sVn includes representatives from government, non-governmental organizations, academia and industry. “our goal is to achieve a 5 percent reduction in overall packaging by 2013. that may not sound like a lot, but think about the multiplier effect of our more than 60,000 suppliers around the world,” fleming told the carbon disclosure project. he added, “we estimate that the impact of in addition to being a big-box discount store, wal-mart is the largest grocery retailer in the u.s., with an estimated 20 percent of the retail food and consumables business. our packaging effort will be equal to removing 213,000 trucks from the road and saving about www.foodprocessing.com february 2008 food processing • 39 http://www.foodprocessing.com

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Food Processing - February 2008 Contents Editor’s Plate NewsBites Regulatory Issues The Trends Rollout Food Biz Kids Product Spotlight Ingredients From Where? Product Development RCA Show Review Plant Operations Packaging New Supplier Products Toops Scoops

Food Processing - February 2008

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