Empowering Sustainability: Industry Actions to Revolutionize Feed Packaging

Written by: Madison Wyman   |   April 22, 2024

Feed Bags, Feed Bag Recycling, Recycling, Sustainability

Feed bags play a pivotal role in keeping animal feed fresh during storage and transportation. Most often, bulk bags made for the purposes of feed are typically manufactured with woven polypropylene, which has been proven to be extremely difficult to recycle. While individuals have found other personal use for the bags, there is no large-scale effort to recycle these bags across the industry, but that could soon change. 

Recently, I had the opportunity to talk to several American Feed Industry Association members on what efforts their companies are making to ensure a more sustainable future for the feed packaging industry.  

Jason Summar, corporate national accounts manager at Hood Packaging, explained to me that the initial push for recyclable bags came from outside the organization. Initially, the push for recyclable bags generated from their customers looking for paper-based, curbside recyclable bags. Over the past few years, Hood Packaging has been able to deliver products that have passed recyclability standards and achieve a recyclable designation.  

 “The customer is always at the center of our sustainability efforts,” Summar stated. “We seek to help our customers achieve their sustainability goals by providing tools like life cycle analyses to aid in decisions that are important to them. We then leverage our technical expertise and network of suppliers to deliver meaningful results.” 

While Hood Packaging achieved recyclable packaging, the company continues to work with key partners and customers to improve their prior developments and create new market solutions. New materials continue to be developed and Hood Packaging stays abreast of these developments so they can incorporate them into their toolkit.  

AFIA member Hood Packaging is also certified through the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and has seen an effort by feed operators toward the “re-paperization” of their products, away from woven polypropylene (WPP) to the more eco-friendly, renewable resource that is paper and can be recycled in the typical OCC (old, corrugated container) streams, which widely exist today.  

Another AFIA member, Morgan McQuerry, director of emerging markets at Hallway Feeds, shared that the company does not utilize polywoven bags. Since the introduction of robotic automation in the mill, the company only uses paper bags. A part of Hallway Feeds' Sustainability Initiative is requiring its two packaging manufacturers to comply with the SFI. The paper companies must employ a net-zero process in planting equal or more trees than those harvested for the bags production. According to , its programs are powerful tools to help achieve shared goals such as climate action, conservation of biodiversity, education of future generations and sustainable economic development. 

In addition to partnering with SFI facilities for paper bags, Hallway Feeds has a program in Lexington, Ky., where their staff pick up used feed bags for recycling. Often, the farms in Lexington do not have the resources to properly recycle feed bags. Hallway Feeds will pick up the used feed bags when delivering fresh feed and then recycle them at their mill. McQuerry also said that the company is taking other steps to be more sustainable, including recently completing a large solar project at the mill. Hallway Feeds’ manufacturing facility electrical consumption is now 90% solar. 

Robert Jacobs, Ph.D., equine innovation manager at the Purina Animal Nutrition Center, notes that the cost of recycling woven polypropylene bags are a main deterrent for large-scale recycling efforts. The bags cannot be recycled in the traditional sense, Jacobs noted.  

“One of the bigger challenges with recycling is that depending on location, most packaging needs to be clean prior to recycling,” Jacobs said. “Unfortunately, feed bags are difficult to clean and large-scale cleaning can be time consuming and costly. Additionally, woven polypropylene bags are typically unable to be recycled in the same facilities as those that handle more typical consumables such as plastic bottles and glass”  

Purina continues to research different bag types that are more recyclable and for an array of reasons, like package integrity, package functionality or cost. While the company is still determining how to move forward with feed bags, Jacobs noted remarkable success with plastic feed tubs. Most of the successful recycling efforts have come in the past five years as Purina has switched to new plastic for their feed tubs, which is significantly more recyclable.  

It is clear to see that members across the animal feed industry are committed to becoming more sustainable by finding new ways to develop feed bags that are recyclable, but the cost and quality (e.g., guarantee of fresh feed), along with customers willingness to potentially pay more drive corporate decision-making.