The Explosion in Lightweight, Flexible, Plastic Food Pouches

The editors of Plastic Make It Possible explain the striking benefits of food packaged in plastic pouches rather than cans.

As I walked down the canned food aisle in my grocery store, it struck me that “canned” fish is not sold solely in cans anymore. Tuna fish, for example, is also sold in flexible plastic pouches. I picked up one of these pouches and compared it to a can of tuna and thought: huh, this plastic pouch seems to weigh a bit less. So I put both in my shopping cart to examine at home.

As I walked up and down the aisles, I noticed that all sorts of other products typically sold in cans, jars, and boxes now are also packaged in pouches. Nuts, dried fruits, trail mix, ethnic foods, spices, sugar, flour, baby formula, chocolate, pet foods, and even wine and some alcoholic beverages are now packaged in lightweight, flexible plastic pouches.

Lightweight plastic pouches use less material. They require less energy to create. They move food with greater fuel-efficiency from the farm to the family table. They result in fewer greenhouse gas emissions. And where waste-to-energy facilities exist, they can provide energy to power our homes.