Packaging

Reusable containers for pet food, mayo and ice cream

Haagen-Dazs ice cream — Häagen-Dazs ice cream/Nestlé

Tropicana orange juice, Quaker oats/PepsiCo

Are shoppers ready to order cereal, cookies and other dry goods in reusable stainless steel tins, instead of cardboard boxes?

Or how about getting condiments and drinks in bottles that people ship back for reuse?

Leading food manufacturers joined recycling company TerraCycle to start the online shopping platform Loop to cut single-use packaging.

Customers don’t even have to clean the containers before putting them in reusable totes picked up by UPS. Scientists developed custom cleaning technologies for safe reuse of the durable, brand-specific packaging.

Shoppers will be able to get pet food too, though the Mars Petcare packaging hadn’t been released yet.

Loop, announced at the World Economic Forum (DAVOS), starts in Paris and New York this spring.

For more information, visit www.loopstore.com

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Rose Shilling is a previous managing editor of Food Engineering Magazine. She wrote feature stories on a variety of topics and tracked the food packaging industry. A journalist with an editing background at news services and newspapers, she also has driven editorial projects in health care and higher education.