Wrigley Replaces Foil Gum Wrappers with Paper

After using foil for more than 100 years, Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. is replacing foil wrappers with paper for its five key chewing-gum brands. The changeover began with envelope-style cardboard packs late last year and will move through all packaging this year, the company confirmed, adding that the paper wrappers cost about 13 percent less than foil and the switch won't affect the freshness or the taste of the gum.

According to Wrigley, which was one of the first gum makers to use foil wrappers, the change should save about 850 tons of aluminum, keeping the equivalent of 60 million cans a year out of landfills. But Wrigley will keep the silver foil wrappers on its Extra brand gum and the colored foil wrappers on its 5 brand.

Wrigley’s degree of variety creates somewhat of a puzzle for configuring a platform of best-practice sustainability methods in the packaging category, but it is working to achieve its goals in materials reduction, recycling usage, and investigation of sustainable materials. According to the company, its recyclable bottle pack is a hallmark example of sustainable packaging created to date.

First introduced in the China marketplace, the packaging was more durable and more sustainable. Compared to blister packages, it uses about 20 percent less packaging materials in weight per piece, which creates an overall reduction of over 2,500 tons of packaging materials per year.

Sources: Chicago Sun Times, Wrigley