General Mills: Environmental Sustainability

Packaging

Minimizing our impact By fiscal 2011, the packaging for 27 percent of General Mills’ sales volume had been improved. This is more than halfway toward the company’s 40 percent goal. General Mills strives to continuously improve the sustainability of its packaging by using materials that are recyclable, require fewer inputs, and are made from renewable resources or recycled content. For example, General Mills Big G cereals and Betty Crocker cake mix cartons are made from 100 percent recycled paperboard. Sustainable packaging solutions not only help the environment by cutting waste, but also lower costs, save fuel, and provide greater efficiencies for retailers and truck transporters.

Holistic Margin Management initiativeThrough the companywide Holistic Margin Management (HMM) initiative, cross-functional teams work to understand what drives value for the consumer, and identify nonvalue-added costs and activities throughout the supply chain. Savings realized through HMM not only minimize waste, but help keep products affordable for consumers. This initiative has led to several packaging improvements across the company. For example, when research revealed consumers did not value the variety of different pasta shapes in Hamburger Helper, an HMM initiative cut the number of unique pasta shapes in half and increased the density of the pasta shapes so they could be packed more tightly in a smaller box. The number of spice and ingredient pouches in each box was also reduced. These changes allowed the company to reduce the size of Hamburger Helper packages by 20 percent while keeping the same amount of product in each box – saving both packaging and transportation costs, and helping the environment.

OverviewGeneral Mills is proud of its history as a leader in sustainable product packaging. The company has a legacy of environmentally friendly packaging dating back to the 1930s when it began using recycled materials in cereal paperboard cartons. Today, General Mills is among the largest users of post-consumer recycled paper packaging in the United States, and continues to implement innovative packaging solutions to help reduce its overall environmental footprint.

In North America, about 75 percent of General Mills’ packaging is recyclable. Approximately 50 percent contains recycled content (post-consumer and post-industrial).

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More cereal, less packagingGeneral Mills developed new cereal packaging technology that allows the company to pack in more cereal while using less packaging. What was previously sold as one extra large carton of cereal at club stores is now being sold as two boxes connected together. This new version – and the

technology that packs cereal in more densely - allows General Mills to fill each cereal box with 10 percent more cereal by weight while using less paperboard. This saves more than 200,000 pounds of paperboard each year. Furthermore, more of the compact boxes fit on each truck, reducing trucking needs by 10 percent annually.

Lighter display cases for snacksIn January 2011, General Mills started using a lighter weight corrugated fiber to pack and display cases of snacks like Chex Mix, Bugles and Gardetto’s in convenience stores. This lighter corrugated fiber means the packaging for each case weighs less by half a pound – or 13 percent. It has saved an estimated 1.1 million pounds of paper-based packaging per year.

Tighter wrap on Nature Valley, Fiber One bars

In January 2011, General Mills started wrapping the packaging around chewy Nature Valley and Fiber One

bars a little tighter. Trimming the pouch size reduced the amount of wrapping – a metalized flexible laminate material – by more than 200,000 pounds a year.

Protecting our futureIn 2010, General Mills established a five-year goal to reduce the environmental footprint of

packaging used to protect and sell the company’s products. By 2015, 40 percent of General Mills’ global product volume will be sold in packaging that has been improved during the last five years. Four key indicators are used to assess improvement: packaging weight; recycled content and recyclability; renewable content and the ability to compost; and truck-loading efficiency. While exploring ways to use less packaging, General Mills is committed to maintaining the same quantity and volume of its products. Lighter and tighter packaging makes it possible to fill trucks with more products and use fewer trucks for transportation, thereby reducing the company’s overall carbon footprint.

Additionally, to demonstrate industry leadership, General Mills is playing a key role in the Consumer Goods Forum’s Global Packaging Project. This effort involves 35 companies who are working collaboratively to develop a common industry language for packaging and sustainability in order to find a clear way to measure environmental and sustainability improvements.

For decades, General Mills has provided consumers with fresh ingredients, delicious foods and innovation in the kitchen. Today, General Mills products are packaged to minimize their impact on the environment after consumers have enjoyed them.

General Mills: Packaging

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