Hills Pet Nutrition with Cody Loewen

In this episode, Cory Connors welcomes Cody Loewen from Hills Pet Nutrition to discuss how innovative packaging solutions are driving both sustainability and cost savings. Cody shares his unconventional journey into packaging, the impact of data-driven optimization projects, and how supplier collaboration and new materials are helping Hills Pet Nutrition reduce plastic use, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and improve operational efficiency.

Key Topics Discussed

• Cody’s background in chemical engineering and transition into packaging
• The importance of supplier collaboration and shared sustainability goals
• Major savings and plastic reduction achieved through the MUST stretch film optimization program with Atlantic Packaging
• Pallet pattern optimization: eliminating over 100,000 pallets annually, reducing storage and transportation needs
• The Canopy™ program: replacing plastic shrink film with paper overwrap, reducing plastic use and enabling significant energy savings by shutting down heat tunnels
• The importance of life cycle analysis (LCA) to ensure true sustainability benefits
• Ongoing efforts to find alternatives for retort pouches and other multi-material packaging
• Collaboration and knowledge sharing with Colgate and other divisions to scale successful projects
• The value of pre-competitive collaboration in the packaging industry
• The excitement and unpredictability of innovation in sustainable packaging

Resources Mentioned

• MUST Stretch Film Optimization System
• Canopy™ Paper Overwrap Solution
• Hills Pet Nutrition
• Colgate-Palmolive Sustainability Initiatives

Contact

Listeners interested in learning more about Hills Pet Nutrition’s sustainability journey or connecting with Cody can visit hillspet.com or reach out via LinkedIn.

Closing Thoughts

Cory and Cody highlight the power of collaboration, creativity, and continuous improvement in sustainable packaging. They encourage industry professionals to seek out like-minded partners, embrace data-driven decision making, and remain open to new ideas that can benefit both business and the environment.

Thank you for tuning in to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors!

Chapters

00:00
Introduction to Sustainable Packaging and Background

01:49
Innovations in Stretch Film and Cost Savings

04:10
Optimization of Pallet Usage for Sustainability

06:56
Exploring Canopy: A Shift from Plastic to Paper

08:41
Future Projects and Collaboration with Colgate

11:47
Looking Ahead: Exciting Developments in Packaging

keywords: sustainable packaging, Hills Pet Nutrition, Cody Loewen, stretch film, pallet optimization, Canopy, energy savings, environmental impact, packaging innovations, pet food packaging

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cory-connors/

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This podcast is an independent production and the podcast production is an original work of the author. All rights of ownership and reproduction are retained—copyright 2022.

Transcript

0:07

Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors presented by Atlantic Packaging. I'm your host, Cory Connors. In today's episode, I connected with Cody Lowen with Hills Pet Nutrition. He is a packaging engineer and has had some amazing success with implementing sustainable packaging programs that save them incredible amounts of money and lowered their greenhouse gas emissions. Hey, Cody, how are you, sir? Hey Cory, doing great. Thanks for having me on today. Really excited about this podcast. We've been chatting for a few weeks now in preparation for it because it's really a big deal. Some of the things that we're going to talk about, but before we get into that stuff, tell us about your, your non-packaging related background and kind of how and why you ended up in packaging. Absolutely. So yeah, as we discussed, I don't really have a packaging background. didn't know packaging was the industry that it was until I found myself here at Hills Pet. So went to school for chemical engineering. So I got a degree in chemical engineering, got out of school and did a bunch of things not related to chemical engineering. So went and found myself over driving a forklift, worked in a warehouse, was a manager for a while at various companies, and then got a call from a family friend that said, hey, we have a packaging engineer position open for you. I don't know if you have any idea what that is, but I think you'd fit right in. And I trusted him and joined the team and realized what packaging really was and kind of just fallen in love with it at this point. It's one of those things, isn't it, that people just kind of fall into. the hundreds of interviews I've done, that's almost always the same kind of story. Nobody says when they're young, I want to be in packaging. Absolutely, it doesn't seem exciting until you get here and you start digging into it and you realize just how fun and exciting it really truly is. And how much it affects all of us all the time. mean, you look around your desk and there's just packaging everywhere. And, it's some engineer like you thought, really hard about, okay, here's, here's how this package should look. And this is the best way to make it. So you're exactly right. That's, that's fun. So you've made some really impressive savings, with, both financially and sustainably related to your company. Let's start with this must stretch film. than the savings that you achieved with Atlantic Packaging. Yeah, for sure. So I was tasked a couple years ago by the company to look into our stretch film usage. And it's funny, it was kind of posed to me as a, there's probably not anything here, you're not really gonna find anything, but it's been long enough, we need to look at it. So you're in charge of that, good luck. And it turns out that there was a lot more to it than we thought there was. So I was lucky enough to... be able to connect with Atlantic Packaging and utilize their resources and their expertise in stretch film, are using the MUST system at this point. We've identified a little north of a million dollar savings and several hundred tons of plastic reduction. So it's been a huge project, both financially and sustainably, and it has really driven a lot of company wide changes in terms of the way we look at some of these packaging items. It really seems so small and insignificant that really might not be in the grand scheme of things when you start looking at scales. Yeah, excellent point. think stretch film is something that hasn't really changed much over the last 20 years. There's been, of course, there's been a lot of high performance film and that's really interesting. And a lot of people have tried to down gauge all the way to numbers that just sound ridiculous gauges that are so thin that they become you have to wrap it so many times. It just doesn't make sense. And it takes too long. But I think the system Atlantic has provided is really a huge innovation and one of the kind. And I'm excited to see that it's working for you and your team at Hillspec. Absolutely, it's been really exciting. It's been a very fun and rewarding project to able to be a part of. Also, you've done some optimization efforts, which I think is really interesting. Our sustainable packaging facility, you will, our facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where we have our solution center is really top notch. And so you and your team were able to work with them and our designers and our other engineers. to reduce your palates by eliminating over 100,000 palates. Let's talk about that and kind of how that works. Yes, sir. So right along the lines of kind of a little project that you wouldn't really think there's much there. So what we've done is we've gone through all of our pallet patterns and evaluated how close are we to the maximum height allowance for our trucks. So for us, that number is 53 inches. So we've gone and we've said, well, how low below 53 inches are we? Is there room to add layers to each of our pallets? Turns out on a couple of them, there are. And again, in those cases, yeah, we're looking at if all goes well in our testing, we're looking at somewhere around 100,000 pallets a year out of our system. That's less storage, that's less trucks being shipped. It's a very exciting project. And it's not what you normally think of when it comes to sustainability with packaging, right? It's not recyclable. It's not finding a way to reuse something, but just a simple optimization project to be able to drive such impact is really kind of a fun thing to look into. You're right, it is. It's kind of counterintuitive. You would think, wait, we don't want to add more stretch film to a pallet. But by doing that and making the pallet slightly taller, you've all of sudden cubed out or maximize your efficiency of your load. And so well done. That's a really great idea. I appreciate that. So do you ever go to any packaging events or anything like that to learn about things like this, or do you really work closely with suppliers like Atlantic Packaging? Mostly work with suppliers. do find myself at PacExpo and Pet Food Forum and a couple of the other conventions each year, but a lot of what I do is just close collaboration with our suppliers. Hills kind of takes the stance that our suppliers are the expert on the packaging they provide. So the best insights we're going to find on any packaging is going to be going through our suppliers, seeing what they find, and then really working together to drive a solution that benefits both parties and works towards our goals. It's also a huge thing for us at Hills to work with suppliers who share the same goals that we do. We really want to work with people who have the same sustainability mindset, who want to work towards the same things because it makes it very easy to work on these type of projects to drive results when both companies are working towards the same thing. That's it. I think that's such an important point. We have to work together. We have to find people that are like-minded and that are thinking differently than a lot of other companies. Companies I've worked with in the past have often just said, okay, well, if they're using that material, I'm sure it's fine. Just, you know, save them a few points and try to build a relationship. Well, let's think bigger than that. Let's have a better relationship. Let's have a real impact. on their sustainability and their bottom line. So I think you've found that sweet spot. Absolutely. So you're also working on a project with our canopy material that I think may go to fruition here. Do you wanna talk through that and what is canopy? How does it work and how is it eliminating some of the plastic usage? Yes, sir. I love to talk about it. So canopy is a solution that was presented to me from Atlantic as an alternative to plastic shrink film today. Think of packs like, you know, 12 packs of cans or water bottles in the store, that kind of shrink film. And it's a paper over wrap instead of that plastic. And it's a really interesting idea. And it eliminates a lot of plastic that not only comes from Hills, but anyone else who would adopt this in the future. For us internally, plastic on our cans, it's really the only place where it lives is in that plastic shrink film. So if we're able to eliminate that and move to a paper option, we've taken half of our portfolio and completely reduced any level of plastic, any level of non-recyclable material. So from a sustainability aspect, it's really an impactful project in our portfolio and our goals towards a sustainable future. That's excellent. And you mentioned that the, one of the largest savings of this potential project are the, is the ability to shut off some equipment that was taking up a lot of energy. You want to talk us through that? Absolutely. Yeah, so our plastic shrink film today has to utilize a heat tunnel to shrink that plastic down and really contain the packaging. We've done some exercises internally to determine how much energy that those machines use on a daily basis, convert that to a cost. And it was kind of astounding what that number actually is. We're looking at somewhere around $50,000 a year that we're estimating per line. So we have six lines in our facilities. We're looking at something around 200 or $300,000 a year on just those tunnels themselves, being able to just turn them off. So it's a very impactful financial savings as well as a sustainability project. That's incredible. And as somebody that worked in a factory for five years, I can tell you that turning off something that makes heat during the summer is you're going to be very popular with the team. That's such a big deal. And what a great metaphor for, you know, lowering the temperature. mean, think about all the carbon savings and that impact is it's going to be a really big deal. Are you doing any of those numbers? Like, are you looking ahead at thinking like, okay, how many, you know, what's the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions? Or are you looking at that kind of stuff yet? Or will that be something you do after the project comes? We're not quite looking at it yet, but it's something we will look at before the project comes to fruition. We're still kind of in those early feasibility stages, make sure it works on our equipment, make sure it works on our conveyance systems, but absolutely, it hills us big into, let's not just say we're sustainable, let's make sure we're proving that we actually are. So just because we're going from plastic to paper or we're moving to a recyclable material doesn't necessarily mean you're helping the environment, right? If you're using more carbon, if you're using more water, you may be less sustainable than you think you are. So really running those LCAs and some of those analysis is to really make sure that what we're doing is benefiting the environment as much as we think we are. So it'll be a big step in our process before we actually determine this is something we should move forward with. And I expect great results from it. And Hills Pet does obviously pet food in cans and bags. Are there any other form factors? it, there any plastic pouches or anything like that, that you're looking at changing? Yes sir, so we run some retort pouches today, little three ounce squeeze wet pouches today. Those are one of things we're working on finding either an alternative material for or an alternative pack. When you talk about plastic bags, it's hard to move to something that's not plastic. It's also hard to move to something that's fully recyclable when you think of multi-material structures. So it's a constant effort across the company. And we got a lot of support from the overarching Colgate company as well to determine what materials we can move forward with that might benefit the ecosystem a little better than what we use today. And those retort pouches are definitely on that list. Yeah, that's really an important project. sounds like. Do you get to work with the other divisions of your company? know Colgate is a really Colgate, Paul Moll of his really large company. Do you get to ever pick the brains of those other engineers? Absolutely, I'd say I have a little bit of a win-win in that situation. So Colgate does a really good job of trusting their Children companies if you will do their jobs So I don't have someone from Colgate watching over my shoulder and telling me exactly how I need to do things They trust me to have the company's best interest at hand But I also have full access to their resources their personnel So I do have some contacts over there I use fairly frequently to run things by them figure out what they're working on if it's something that I could bring in-house or vice versa they may come to me and ask me what I'm working on. think the stretch wrap is a great example of that. I'm working with a couple engineers on the Colgate side to try to bring the MUST system their direction because they heard of how impactful it's been for us. So it really is an open channel. It's been a great relationship with the people I've worked with over on the Colgate side so far. That's incredible. Yeah, I've worked with some of your team or spoke with them about their monomaterial toothpaste project. That was a big deal. And actually making those tubes recyclable was a big impact and it kind of international news. So I'm sure you've got a lot to talk to them about. Absolutely, it's very inspirational watching how they've not only developed those type of materials, but then just made them so widely accessible out in the market. It was important to drive that project, but it was more important to them to make sure that we could drive that project across the industry versus keeping it to ourselves. It's really been inspirational to see how they've handled that development and really taken the sustainability to heart. And that's the goal at the end of the day. Yeah, that's the first time I've heard the phrase pre competition collaboration. And I thought, wow, that's really a giving mindset for sustainability and packaging is, Hey, you're a brand like us. Why don't we work together and figure this out so that, that we all look good in the end and we all help our consumers and the planet. Yeah. Very exciting. So what's next for you? Anything exciting coming up? Are you going to Go to a big show, you got some big holiday plans. Oh, nothing too exciting. I don't think I have any big shows coming up, but just keep working on these projects. I love what I do. I love driving these things forward. So I'm excited to see solutions like Canopy in the market and whatever else is going to come next. There's always something else on the radar when it comes to sustainability. And it's kind of the exciting part of the job is sometimes as a packaging engineer, I really don't know what's next. I don't even know what's out there. might be something I've never heard of. And then all of a sudden I'm working on trying to bring it to the shelves as fast as possible. That's what's next. exciting and we'll do another show someday soon and maybe you'll show us some of these really innovative packaging materials that you've adopted and put out into the market. Absolutely, sounds great. Well, thanks again for being on Cody. Really appreciate you. Thanks Cory, thanks for having me, it was an honor.