Yum! Brands made some sustainability strides in 2023 by expanding one of its packaging recycling programs for hard-to-recycle items, but it needs to cover a lot of ground if it will meet a separate virgin plastic reduction goal next year, according to the ESG report it released Tuesday.
The parent company of fast-food brands Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC and Habit Burger & Grill released data about its progress toward people, food and planet goals at its more than 58,000 global restaurants. One focal area is “better packaging,” with emphasis on reducing overall waste, reducing use of unnecessary and single-use plastics and identifying reusable, recyclable and compostable packaging solutions. Some other ongoing initiatives to improve packaging include redesigns for better recovery and managing collection and sortation in restaurants.
Yum! estimates that at least 20% of its consumer-facing plastic packaging was considered reusable, recyclable or compostable as of last year. Its stated target is to “move consumer-facing plastic packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025 across all brands.”
Brand initiatives
At the individual brand level, the report says Taco Bell expanded its partnership with TerraCycle for mail-in sauce packet recycling to include any brand of sauce dipping cups, souffle cups, lids and coffee creamer pods. In 2023, Taco Bell’s program collected 6,800 pounds of these items. It did not quantify the amount of packets collected through this program in the previous year’s ESG report.
Pizza Hut changed the graphics on pizza boxes to encourage consumers to recycle. At KFC, there was progress toward sustainable packaging in markets “such as India and Canada in achieving 100% of priority packaging goals ahead of schedule,” although no further specifics were included. And Habit Burger & Grill reduced paper usage with new takeout bags.
Overall packaging goals
Yum! says its packaging landscape is complex due to the needs of individual establishments and regional policies, which is why the company has a “harmonized packaging policy.” The policy guides the management of packaging at various stages of its life cycle, including material choices and end-of-life handling. And under that policy, Yum! in 2022 set sustainability goals to achieve by 2025.
One goal is to reduce virgin plastic content by 10% across all brands. In 2023, 86% of the company’s plastic packaging and service ware was virgin plastic, down from 89% for the 2020 baseline. That leaves the company needing a notable further reduction by next year to achieve its target.
Yum! Brands shareholders faced pressure in 2023 from corporate social responsibility and shareholder advocacy nonprofit As You Sow to pass a resolution requiring a report on how the company would reduce plastics use by shifting away from single-use packaging. Yum! opposed the resolution, citing the targets it put in place in 2022, and it pointed to plans to eliminate expanded polystyrene plastic across all restaurants along with initiatives for virgin plastic reduction and unnecessary plastic elimination. Votes in favor totaled 36.9%, so the resolution did not pass.
Another goal is to eliminate “unnecessary plastics” across all Yum! brands by 2025. The company reports having started or completed about 25% of plastic packaging reduction projects; these mainly focused on transitioning high-volume items such as containers, lids, cutlery and bags from plastic to fiber or foil.
Consumer packaging is Yum!’s primary focus, but “we recognize that circularity involves updates across the entire packaging suite, including back-of-house,” the report says. The corporation determined that back-of-house packaging, not food-contact items, contains about 42% recycled content; it plans to work with suppliers to further increase this.
The company estimates that fiber packaging constitutes 2% of its overall scope 3 emissions and plastic packaging comprises 1%. Last year, it charted a 28% reduction in scope 3 emissions compared with a 2019 baseline, on the way toward a target of a 46% reduction by 2030.
