Building a sustainable future
The first steps in our recycled packaging journey
Bird's Eye is moving to
22%
recycled content in our 750g
microwave steam bags
Our Ambitions
TODAY
In 2024 we have brought our first Birds Eye plastic packaging to market that contains recycled content.
This is just the start of our journey, and we are committed to increasing the use of recycled content across all of our packaging materials.
VISION
Intentional packaging design so no packaging ends up in the environment and landfill and to minimise our impact on earth's resources for future generations, so we can all come back for seconds.
TARGET
We are doing our part by creating demand for recycled material locally in Australia that can be reused safely in our packaging and contribute to the circular packaging economy.
This is part of our commitment to the national packaging targets to be 100% recyclable, reusable or compostable.
All packaging is designed to be recovered in the Australian waste stream and have a second life.
Questions and Answers
1. How is used soft plastic material recycled?
There are two common methods for recycling plastic at end of life. The first is through mechanical recycling whereby the material is processed under heat and friction and shredded into plastic granules that can be reprocessed into items such as parking bollards, park benches and building applications. The resultant material is not suitable for application in direct food contact.
The second process is called Advanced Recycling which is a conversion to monomer or production of new materials by changing the chemical structure of a material or substance through cracking, gasification or depolymerisation, excluding energy recovery or incineration* (taken from CSIRO site). The recycled content that Birds Eye has sourced for this packaging mostly comes from Advanced Recycled Material (ARM) which is suitable for direct food contact application.
2. Why is it important to incorporate recycled material in plastic packaging?
Aligning with Birds Eye full commitment on sustainability, one of our core focus is to embed circular economy mindset in our packaging design. By incorporating some recycled material into our packaging, this will help in reducing virgin plastic material consumption, as well as reducing the energy uptake used to convert or produce our product packaging.
3. Why is Birds Eye limited on the percentage of advanced recycled material when other brands are incorporating a higher percentage in their packaging?
Given the limited advanced recycled plastic stock available locally or even in global scale, as well as the inherent risk of harsh frozen product distribution and environment, we are committed to introduce recycled content into our product packaging gradually, whilst continuously perform rigorous testings and due diligence to ensure our product and packaging quality meet our requirements. While we can only bring you 22% in our Steamfresh 750g microwave bags for now, we have great ambitions to continue to increase our recycled content further across the Birds Eye range from 2026.
4. Why is there only recycled content on the Steamfresh microwave bag and not on the outer bag packaging?
The incorporation of recycled content in our microwave Steamfresh bag is just the start of Birds Eye end-to-end sustainability commitment to reduce virgin plastic consumption in our business. This initiative works hand-in-hand with our continuous focus in sourcing Advanced Recycled Material (ARM) plastic to our product packaging. The microwave bag is a different plastic material to the outer bag and contained Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) which needed to be designed out for future recyclability.
5. Can I recycle the microwave steam bag and the outer bag packaging?
The infrastructure across Australia is at various stages for material return and we encourage you to ‘check locally’ on whether this can be recycled by return to store or kerb side using the ARL website arl.org.au for services specific to each council area in Australia. The majority of locations will instruct for this packaging to be discarded to landfill (red bin) on both the microwave bag and outer packaging. In future when the infrastructure is in place, this packaging will be updated via the ARL website to instruct where and how this can be returned as it is designed for recycling (both microwave and outer packaging).
6. Is it safe to microwave this packaging?
Yes, our microwave Steamfresh bag is specifically designed and made to be safe for microwave application, as per our product cooking instructions.
7. What other sustainability initiatives is Birds Eye involved in?
Along with our packaging journey, Birds Eye is committed to producing locally grown vegetables across Australia to support farmers, communities and the earth and only sourcing fish that is responsibly sourced.
You can click to learn more about our seed to plate story and MSC certification.
