Kroger expands product selection with upcycled ingredients
- Kroger has added products that qualify as upcycled.
- New products certified by the UFA include two types of bread.
- The grocer also says more than 1 million pieces of plastic have been recycled as part of its collaboration with TerraCycle.
Kroger will expand its product selection that contains upcycled ingredients, the grocer announced in an April 28 release.
Kroger said it would add seeded multigrain bread and multigrain quinoa bread to its natural and organic Simple Truth private label. The new bread options are created with a blend of upcycled barley, wheat and rye grains and include other ingredients such as quinoa and sunflower, flax, black sesame and pumpkin seeds, according to the release.
The products are certified as upcycled by the non-profit trade association Upcycled Food Association (UFA), which means the products use or are produced with surplus ingredients or food by-products from the manufacturing process. Kroger joined the UFA, which is made up of more than 225 businesses, in 2022.
Other Simple Truth products that have the certification include Kroger’s plant-based dark chocolate brownie mix, plant-based chocolate chip cookie mix, plant-based sugar cookie mix and gluten-free banana bread mix, the release said.
Kroger also in the release highlighted another sustainability milestone: the grocer has recycled more than 1 million pieces of plastic from its array of private label products it calls Our Brands. According to Kroger, the recycling is done in collaboration with TerraCycle, a New Jersey-based recycling company. The program began in 2020 and offers customers who sign up for prepaid shipping labels to mail in plastic packaging for recycling. The packaging is used to build childrens’ playgrounds that are donated by Kroger, the grocer said.
"We are continually looking for creative and innovative solutions to support our vision of creating zero-waste communities," said Juan De Paoli, vice president of Our Brands for Kroger, in the release. "Our customers sharing in that commitment by recycling packaging and purchasing products made with upcycled ingredients, alongside our efforts to advance sustainability, makes important progress toward eliminating waste and creating healthy, thriving communities."
As Retail Leader Pro recently reported, sustainability is important to consumers making CPG purchases. In 2022, sustainable products drove a third of all CPG growth, while representing 17% of total CPG Sales, according to the CSB Sustainable Market Share Index by the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business and Circana.