Kroger Announces Reusable Packaging Platform

By Linda Casey

Cover of Kroger's 2021 Environmental, Social and Governance report.
| Credit: Kroger

When The Kroger Co. published its 2021 Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) report in late August 2021, the company also released a statement about how it plans to further integrate its people, planet and systems approach into lines of business and develop a shared-value framework that unlocks economic opportunity. Packaging manufacturers have a key opportunity to help Kroger achieve its goals as many revolve around packaging initiatives as well as waste and resource reduction.

The packaging and converting community would also be wise to keep an eye on Kroger’s new partnership with Loop, as Kroger’s outsized influence in the grocery sector can propel Loop’s reusable packaging program into the mainstream. Kroger will be Loop’s exclusive U.S. grocery partner and the grocer says that the resulting reusable packaging platform will play a large role in Kroger’s zero-waste vision by reducing single-use plastics in the environment.

Other packaging initiatives spotlighted in the report include the use of 100% recyclable, compostable and/or reusable Our Brands packaging by 2030. Innovative and effective packaging can also help Kroger achieve its goal of achieving zero retail food to landfills by 2025.

"As a grocery retailer, Kroger is committed to advancing positive impacts for people and our planet and to creating more resilient global systems," Rodney McMullen, Kroger's chairman and CEO, said in the company statement.

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Linda Casey Author's page

As editor-in-chief of Packaging Impressions — the leading publication and online content provider for the printed packaging markets — Linda Casey leverages her experience in the packaging, branding, marketing, and printing industries to deliver content that label and package printers can use to improve their businesses and operations.

Prior to her role at Packaging Impressions, Casey was editor-in-chief of BXP: Brand Experience magazine, which celebrated brand design as a strategic business competence. Her body of work includes deep explorations into a range of branding, business, packaging, and printing topics.

Casey’s other passion, communications, has landed her on the staffs of a multitude of print publications, including Package Design, Converting, Packaging Digest, Instant & Small Commercial Printer, High Volume Printing, BXP: Brand Experience magazine, and more. Casey started her career more than three decades ago as news director for WJAM, a youth-oriented music-and-news counterpart to WGCI and part of the Chicago-based station’s AM band presence.