American food company Kraft Heinz has set new goals to minimise the use of virgin plastic in its packaging by up to 20% by 2030.

This will mark a crucial step in supporting Kraft Heinz's efforts to minimise fossil fuel consumption and transition to more sustainable packaging alternatives across its business.

This goal, if achieved, is expected to kerb the use of 100 million pounds of virgin plastic, when compared with the 2021 baseline.

The latest announcement builds on Kraft Heinz’s previously made investment to reduce plastic use and fulfil its wider packaging targets.

More specifically, these targets include an effort to make 100% recyclable, reusable, or compostable packaging by 2025 and to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by 2050.

Kraft Heinz's executive vice-president, global general counsel, and chief sustainability and corporate affairs officer Rashida La Lande said: “To achieve our ESG [environmental, social, and governance] goals, including to reach net-zero GHG emissions, we cannot continue to do things as we have in past.

“We are investing in innovative technologies and partnerships that are critical to helping us redesign [our] packaging, eliminate unnecessary plastic, increase our use of recycled content, and influence the adoption of reuse models.”

The company has already transitioned to 30% recycled content for most of its bottles sold in the UK, Brazil, and Europe markets.

To further explore fibre-based solutions, Kraft Heinz and Pulpex partnered last year to develop a paper-based, recyclable bottle using 100% sustainably sourced wood pulp for Heinz’s Tomato Ketchup product.

Currently, a prototype of the bottle is being tested to determine its performance before being launched into the market.

In 2021, Heinz worked with Westrock to introduce eco-friendly packaging for its multipack canned products in the UK.