In 1987, the United Nations Brundtland Commission defined sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” From that vague description, sustainability has come to encompass a wide range of specific environmental, social and economic issues. That multiplicity can make it confusing when individuals are looking to start a sustainability initiative within their pet food industry business.
A panel of seasoned pet food professionals shared their advice on how to filter the green torrent and find a sustainability plan that meets a specific company’s needs, during an Ask the Pet Food panel discussion Pro: Making sustainable pet food in Petfood Forum 2024 in Kansas City, Missouri. Jim Lamancusa, executive director of the Pet Sustainability Coalition, hosted the discussion.
Question: How do you recommend pet food brands begin their sustainability journeys?
Stephie Volo, chief impact officer, Earth Animal
“You have to involve everyone in the company.”
Sustainability means so many different things to so many people that it really has to come down to, ‘What makes the most sense to the company? What are the company’s values? What is your company’s mission, goals and vision? and what does that mean to you?’ but also, to integrate a sustainability strategy into your company, you want the buy-in of your entire team. You want them connected, because it’s cross-functional, it’s cross-departmental, and you have to involve everyone in the company. So you might want to work with an organization like the Pet Sustainability Coalition, to survey your team to ask them about what sustainability means to them. What would they like to see your company focus on? How would they like to see your company improve in social and environmental performance? So that’s an actual initiative that I would recommend to people who are just hiring our companies that are just starting their sustainability journey to start?
Elizabeth Maier, director, growth and innovation, Wilbur-Ellis Nutrition
I am on the supplier side of this whole story. And the best advice I can give is, as a supplier, it’s to work with your customer. So often, the brands are the most relevant to what consumers are asking for, because they are the ones with the market research. They are the ones who get the information directly all the time. As a supplier, you can sometimes forget that your ultimate customer is the consumer. And so it’s really important to talk to your current customers to your future customers, what they’re asking for, and then raise our game as suppliers to meet their needs, because they can’t, they can’t meet consumer demands without being where we should be. And this is not a commercial for PSC, but we have more resources than ever to help us with this. It’s okay to be at stage zero. I think that’s what in this industry, we need to be okay with that. We all have to start somewhere and organizations like PSC or AFIA. iFeeder now has a toolkit to help with maintenance. These are the people and places that can help us start in the first place.
Adam Craig, director of product development, Hill’s Pet Nutrition
When I think back to when our sustainability journey began, Hill’s Pet Nutrition, going back to 2019, one of the first things is knowing what your baseline is. So I totally agree, and the first step is, ‘what are your priorities?’ Because as we said, sustainability can mean many things. So, what are your priorities? But then quickly find out what the baseline is for you as a company? And what are your goals and objectives? And for us, it’s really about taking a data-driven approach, like so much else we do in this industry that uses data to help with a baseline assessment. And then that starts to lay the foundation for where you focus your energy, your resources to make improvements because there’s a lot of, I would say, shiny things out there that you can go after, that might seem great, but might can not do. a large effect or as large an effect as you expected when you got the data. I think that basic knowledge is fundamental to doing it the right way.
Brian Steinwagner, executive vice president with sustainability responsibilities, Morris Packaging
I have been in this industry for 30 plus years. So yes, I started when I was 10. But I saw the growth of sustainability efforts in those years. Right now, we’re at the top. Going through those ebbs and flows, we don’t want to have one thing or just one thing. We designed a sustainability menu because as Stephie said, everyone has different goals as a company and what goals they’re trying to reach. We want to provide a menu of options that we can support, whether it’s 100%, recyclable, whether it’s recycled content, or maybe just the right size of your package. We want to be able to support those variants and meet each company’s goals. The one that for us has had the most traction is recycled content. We are able to provide 35% recycled content in pet food packaging at no additional cost to our customers, and only a 1% premium for 45% recycled content. So we had a tremendous amount of traction in that area.
Shannon Landry, pet brand manager, Packaged Facts
From a consumer-insights perspective, any sustainability initiatives you implement, you’ll want to get the word out, and typically, consumer education, making people aware of your efforts.
