Podcast: Top sustainability trends in 2024
The Packer recently profiled Kieran Ficken McNeice, director of sustainability programs with Measure to Improve, as part of The Packer 25. The future of sustainability played a major part of that conversation.
Ficken McNeice joins the "Tip of the Iceberg podcast" to share what she sees playing a major part of the fresh produce industry this year. Ficken McNeice says sustainability is here to stay in conversations around fresh produce.
“Sustainability is still something that consumers are interested in, and as long as consumers are interested, that means that buyers and retailers will be interested and it means that regulators will be interested,” she said.
This year fresh produce growers, packers and shippers should expect to see increased reporting of emissions. While California enacted regulations to require greenhouse gas reporting for companies over a certain amount of revenue, she says produce growers, packers and shippers could also see these mandates coming from produce buyers.
“In 2023, that was the first year that we saw Walmart asking for a full carbon footprint, and I don't have any reason to think that they won't ask for that again [this] year,” she says. “These requests get more complicated and more involved, not less, over time.”
She also expects to see more conversation around sustainable packaging.
“Whether that new labeling requirements, buyers and retailers pushing for the how to recycle label or other kinds of labeling are certainly something that we've seen an uptick in,” she said.
And adopting new sustainable packaging isn’t something that happens overnight, Ficken McNeice says, which is why it’s critical to involve the entire produce supply chain in developing the answers to new sustainability challenges.
“We know that produce does not grow all by itself, so if you are a produce company that grows you might not pack,” she said. “If you are a packer or a marketer, you might not grow the product yourself. Some companies do all of these things, but some don't, and that means that we need to be thinking about how we work together.”
Listen to the podcast episode here.
