Ocean Spray Cranberries has revealed its latest partnership with waste management company TerraCycle to enable consumers to downcycle Ocean Spray’s flexible plastic and snack packaging into park benches and picnic tables.

Through the partnership, Ocean Spray is advancing its sustainable packaging strategy by diverting waste from landfills and extending the life of materials to reduce the overall environmental footprint.

“The future of sustainable packaging has such potential to make a meaningful, positive environmental impact,” an Ocean Spray spokesperson tells FoodIngredientsFirst. 

“Flexible packaging has the potential to play a critical role, and we are also excited to see innovation develop in the space – the more, the merrier, as we look to create a better future. We welcome any innovation that will lead to a brighter future for the next generation and that can drive cross-sector impact.”

“Now more than ever, our commitment to improving the health of people and the planet is critical,” the spokesperson maintains. “Our sustainability program focuses on creating cross-sector solutions to drive forward practices that create a better world and expand our impact on sustainable packaging and additional, larger-scale sustainability efforts.”

This week, consumers can send their Ocean Spray Craisins dried cranberry products in flexible plastic packaging to TerraCycle, wher the packaging is cleaned and melted into hard plastic that can be remolded to make new recycled products, such as park benches and picnic tables. 

Leveraging the Loop platform 
As an incentive, for each shipment of Ocean Spray Craisins dried cranberries packaging sent to TerraCycle through the Ocean Spray Recycling Program, participants earn points that can be donated to a non-profit, school or charitable organization of their choice. 

“The Loop program is a promising start to larger F&B industry sustainability initiatives, driving forward a circular economy. With the Loop program’s approach to sustainable packaging, we can begin to develop a robust supply chain initiative, taking an innovative approach to making a meaningful environmental impact in this space,” the spokesperson explains. 

“At this time, our partnership is focusing on our Craisins dried cranberry product packaging. In the future, we plan to extend our work to our beverage products, specifically our Cranberry Juice Cocktail packaging. Looking beyond that, we hope to work with TerraCycle to expand our work together into more locations, driving forward the program to grow the impact and build a circular economy.”

Reusable packaging
Consumers will be able to order Ocean Spray products from Loop’s e-commerce platform. once done with the product, they will return the packaging to Loop to clean, sanitize and refill with the original products to reuse.

“We embrace TerraCycle’s innovative platform as a new way to approach the process of recycling, especially as we honor Climate Week. And we consider the steps we are taking as an organization through all of our sustainability efforts to continue this work in a meaningful way,” says Christina Ferzli, head of global corporate affairs at Ocean Spray.

“Since our founding, TerraCycle has made it our objective to ‘Eliminate the Idea of Waste’ by recycling the unrecyclable and diverting waste from landfills and local communities,” adds Tom Szaky, CEO of TerraCycle.

“Through the Ocean Spray Recycling Program, we are joining forces with this iconic brand to offer a simple solution to packaging waste that helps preserve our environment for future generations,” he concludes.

Earlier this year, Ocean Spray announced it is the first significant fruit cooperative worldwide to achieve verification that its crop is sustainably grown through the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform’s Farm Sustainability Assessment.