Pringles Potato Chip Tubes’ Steel Bottom to be Replaced by a Paper-cardboard End
The potato chip brand Pringles, which is owned by Kellogg, has spent EUR100m developing new packaging that is completely recyclable.
The company’s Mechelen R&D center in Belgium, which also contains one of its largest plants and cranks out 104,000 tonnes of chips annually for export to 80 nations, is where the entirely recyclable paper tube was created.
According to the company’s representatives, researchers worked on the new packaging for nearly five years.
The renowned Pringles potato chip tubes will gradually replace their steel bottom with a paper-cardboard end beginning in May, making them completely recyclable.
The paper-cardboard bottom of the tube not only makes it five grams lighter, but it also uses less water, produces 40% less CO2, and is less expensive, according to the manufacturer.
A thin layer of aluminum has been added to the cardboard base to shield the potato chips from oxygen and ensure a shelf life of 15 months.
“Tubes with a steel bottom were recyclable in theory, but not in reality, as the consumer does not separate the metal bottom from the cardboard packaging,” Luc Houben, general manager of Kellogg’s Benelux, told Belgian daily L’Echo, cited by European Supermarket Magazine.
Three factories that make Pringles potato chips—one in Mechelen, one in Poland, and one in the US—invested EUR100m in research and the modification of production lines.
Researchers looked into the potential of using a cardboard lid in place of the plastic lid but concluded that plastic was still the most productive and affordable option.
The new machines will be able to generate more than 1bn chip tubes annually once the new technology is fully operational. The transition to less-polluting packaging is part of a global sustainability initiative that Pringles started a few years ago. The owner of the company and the brand, Kellogg, plans to cut its CO2 emissions by 45% by 2030.