In another step to further reduce the produce industry’s environmental impact, major North American fresh berry producers announced their commitment to use 100% recycle-ready packaging by 2025. The California Strawberry Commission, the North American Blueberry Council (NABC), Asociacion national de Exportadores de Berries (Aneberries, Mexico), members of the National Berry Crops Initiative, and South American exporters are joining to maintain industry leadership in sustainable packaging.

The cornerstone of this collaboration is the commitment to new label standards, which will optimize the recycle readiness of all berry clamshells throughout North America. The groups are further unified in their commitments to encourage consumer recycling of clamshells and establish new purchase specifications for packaging manufacturers. By working together as competitive collaborators, these actions will create economies of scale to reduce costs, and stimulate a closed-loop circular economy that recycles berry clamshells back into new berry clamshells.

This commitment to 100% recycle-ready clamshells complements existing actions that use recycled content to make berry clamshells. For over a decade, berry clamshells have been among the food packages that use the most California post-consumer recycled content in the U.S. For example, it is common for California berry clamshells to contain more than 50% recycled content.

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