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Frozen french fry company makes game-changing improvement to its packaging: 'Customers ... are appreciative'

Consider it a win for the planet — and your plate.

Consider it a win for the planet — and your plate.

Photo Credit: iStock

Get ready to pass the ketchup without guilt. Lamb Weston, a popular frozen french fry company, is now giving restaurants the option to buy its wholesale fries in recyclable paper bags. According to the trade publication Packaging World, the new packaging option was developed as a more sustainable alternative to polyethylene bags, the reigning standard in frozen food.

"This initiative was driven by our goal to develop packaging to be recycle-ready, reusable, or compostable," Michael Grandinetti, senior manager of packaging engineering for Lamb Weston, told Packaging World. "We have previously offered paper bags for our products, but this redevelopment allows them to now be accepted in the paper recycle stream."

Often, food brands use a plastic film coating on paper bags to make them resistant to moisture and grease, Packaging World explained. These film-coated bags, however, can't be recycled — unlike the new Lamb Weston paper bags.

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These innovative paper bags also require less dirty fuel and water to produce than polyethylene bags, adding another planet-positive perk to the option. 

Polyethylene is a plastic that is generally considered food-safe, though some studies linked chemicals in this type of packaging with food contamination. Plus, polyethylene — and all plastics — have seriously problematic staying power. Discarded plastics never actually break down in the environment. Instead, they form microplastics, which can enter the environment and contaminate the food and water supply. 

To curb the use of polyethylene bags, it took Lamb Weston several years to develop its new bag innovation, navigating challenges like how to make the paper bags moisture- and grease-resistant. Lamb Weston's packaging innovation team performed numerous tests on the paper bags to ensure durability, including real-world and lab testing. 

While Lamb Weston is keeping its exact tech a secret, the brand told Packaging World that its proprietary paper material passed recyclability testing by Western Michigan University, adding that its recyclability claim is in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission guidelines. Packaging World suggested the packaging could have a type of "recyclable biopolymer coating," as the brand promotes the bag as being "bio-based."

The bag was introduced in mid-2024, and the brand said wholesale feedback has been positive. Late last year, Lamb Weston also introduced a bag made partially of used cooking oil to retail shelves. The brand said packaging innovation reduces the carbon footprint of each bag by 30%. Both bag options are part of the company's goals to cut its food waste in half, decrease its carbon pollution by 25%, and create a more circular production model by 2030.

Grandinetti told Packaging World: "Customers who have their own ESG [Environmental, Social, and Governance] goals are appreciative of Lamb Weston providing a solution to reduce their own footprint." 

Consider it a win for the planet — and your plate.

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