Top 15 of 2025, #2: Private Label Brands Target Low-Barrier, Recyclable Films via Retailer Forum

The #2 most clicked article of 2025: Major retailers including Amazon, Walmart, CVS, and Target are uniting through the Sustainable Packaging Coalition to accelerate development of recyclable, low-barrier flexible films that can meet circularity goals without disrupting existing lines.

Unlike food packaging or products requiring oxygen or moisture barriers, some applications don’t need the complex multi-layer laminations that make many films difficult or impossible to recycle.
Unlike food packaging or products requiring oxygen or moisture barriers, some applications don’t need the complex multi-layer laminations that make many films difficult or impossible to recycle.
Walmart Media Library

In another example of pre-competitive collaboration between brand owners, CPGs, and now retailers with private label brands of their own, the Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) launched a Retailer Forum initiative designed to tackle one of the most persistent challenges in circular packaging. And that's the hurdle of scaling recyclable flexible films that meet real-world production and performance needs. The Forum was first announced at SPC Advance in Boston earlier this month. 

Founding members Amazon, Walmart, CVS Health, and Target, all of whom have made ambitious packaging sustainability commitments, are aligning through the SPC Retailer Forum to address a shared barrier. Each operates its own portfolio of private-label or store-brand products, which functionally behave like consumer packaged goods (CPGs) but depend on external packaging suppliers for design and sourcing. While these retailers have made significant progress toward sustainable packaging, their private brands’ ability to innovate often hinges on the options their film converters and suppliers can provide. This supplier limitation is what the new Retailer Forum aims to change. 

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