(PRESS RELEASE) TORONTO — In recognition of World Environment Day (June 5), KFC Canada announced its commitment to make all of its consumer-facing packaging fully home compostable by 2025.
KFC will begin piloting its first home compostable bucket this year. This effort is estimated to divert nearly 200 million pieces of packaging from Canadian landfills each year.
As part of this new commitment, KFC Canada is partnering with Toronto-based artist Briony Douglas to design and create a KFC bucket installation made entirely out of home compostable materials. The installation will be revealed on June 30.
“One of our leading principles at KFC Canada is feeding people, not landfills. The move to 100% home compostable consumer packaging is a bold and ambitious step we are taking to inspire positive change in the communities we operate in,” says Nivera Wallani, president and general manager, KFC Canada. “We embrace our responsibility to drive meaningful change across the industry and work closely with our suppliers, franchisees and team members to continuously lessen KFC’s environmental footprint.”
In the last several years, the company has made strides in lessening its environmental footprint. KFC Canada’s recent sustainability achievements include:
- Testing of fiber-based cutlery: In November 2020, select restaurants began testing a new fiber-based “spork” made from bamboo, corn and sugarcane. The new cutlery naturally decomposes at room temperature and requires no additional treatment, nor does it leave any toxic by-products. The process takes approximately 18 months to decompose. Once fully introduced into the KFC restaurant system, the compostable cutlery will eliminate 40 million pieces of plastic cutlery annually.
- Introduction of bamboo buckets: In 2020, KFC Canada announced that bamboo would become a permanent packaging solution for poutine and chicken – given that the material is fast-growing, anti-bacterial and 100% biodegradable. By the end of 2021, KFC will have removed 12 million plastic poutine containers from its operations by transitioning to bamboo.
- Removing plastic straws and bags: In 2019, KFC Canada announced its pledge to eliminate all non-recoverable or non-reusable plastic-based packaging by 2025. By the end of 2019, KFC Canada removed all plastic straws and bags from its restaurants, eliminating 50 million plastic straws and 10 million plastic bags across the country and replacing them with fiber-based alternatives.
“Our packaging is a part of our heritage and our storytelling. Beyond its iconic image, we want KFC’s packaging to be forward-thinking, inspiring, and to champion functionality, food safety and eco-friendly solutions,” says Armando Carrillo, innovation manager, KFC Canada. “We have continued to accelerate our efforts and push the boundaries to bring more environmentally sustainable packaging solutions to market, including our recent move to bamboo poutine buckets. A fully home compostable packaging line is the ultimate win for us and for the environment.”
To learn more about KFC Canada’s approach to environmental sustainability, visit: www.kfc.ca/environment.
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