Albertsons Companies Celebrates Dairy Month with Innovative Packaging

Over the years, we have proudly introduced our brands such as Lucerne®, Open Nature® and O Organics®, all offering an assortment of wholesome dairy products from milk, cheese and butter to yogurt and ice cream and everything in between. While the product quality and taste of these products is a no brainer, our environmental footprint is also of huge importance to our company. As part of our ongoing commitment to sustainability, we continue to explore opportunities to minimize our carbon emissions and reduce the waste output in our facilities. In honor of National Dairy Month this June, read on to learn more about how we are helping the environment by buying local and reducing plastic waste!

Buying Local

We have seven dairy manufacturing plants across the country and the majority of the dairy farms we source our milk from are located within a just a short 100-mile radius of these plants! Since this locally-sourced milk is in transit from farm to plant for a shorter amount of time and distance, we are able to keep our carbon footprint low.

Zero Waste

Our manufacturing facilities have committed to zero waste by diverting over 90% of our waste from the landfill by the year 2022. One initiative to help meet our goal is the new light-weight design of our one-gallon milk jugs. By using less plastic, we create less waste. It’s that simple. Earlier this year, we piloted a lighter jug at one of our plants where we enhanced the product design and modified manufacturing equipment. After many tests and trials, our teams engineered a jug that uses about 10% less plastic than the previous design. That’s enough plastic to reduce resin usage by the equivalent of 13 million jugs per year. We plan to expand this pilot initiative to the majority of our dairy plants over the next year. During the production process, we take waste reduction even a step further by gathering those leftover plastic molds, regrinding and mixing them with plastic resin to create new jugs!

Concerned about the quality of these new and improved jugs? David Nelsen, our Vice President of Dairy explains, "we’ve managed to create a lighter jug that uses less plastic while still maintaining its integrity. The appearance and performance of the new jugs are similar to the old ones." And don’t worry, these milk jugs will continue to be made of high-density polyethylene and consumers can continue to recycle them at local recycling centers where accepted.