The Kraft YES Pack, an innovative and eco-friendly dressings package for the foodservice industry, has been awarded the coveted DuPont Packaging Award for innovation. A recent winner of the 2012 National Restaurant Association Food and Beverage Product Innovation Award, the YES (Yield, Ease and Sustainability) pack is designed to help operators manage costs and improve back-of-house efficiencies by conserving energy and raw materials during the production process.
"The DuPont Awards for Packaging Innovation celebrates how collaborating throughout the value chain can bring cost-effective innovation to the market in a way that matters to consumers," said Shanna Moore, global director sustainable packaging, DuPont Packaging & Industrial Polymers. "The Kraft YES Pack embodies that spirit."
The YES Pack earned a silver award in the category of Innovation. An expert panel of judges from 21 countries evaluated 200 entries. One diamond winner, five gold winners and 10 silver winners were awarded based on "excellence" in one, two or all three of the following categories: Innovation, Sustainability and Cost/Waste Reduction.
The YES Pack was recognized for the flexible nature of its packaging which allows operators to easily extract up to 99% of the dressing inside, putting more dressings on salads and less waste in landfills. There is also a significant cost savings in discarded material as the YES Pack takes up 86% less dumpster space than rigid gallon jugs. The YES Pack can be recycled, but if thrown away its waste takes up 50% less landfill space. Compared with the typical rigid gallon dressing jug, in production the YES Pack is made with 50% less energy, 60% less plastic and 70% fewer CO2 emissions from transportation.
"We are honored to receive the DuPont Award for innovation and to be recognized for this achievement," says Stacey Rychlewski, business manager, Kraft Foodservice. "The YES Pack is a product with four years of research and industry expertise behind it. Because of its groundbreaking design, operators are getting 99% yield which is saving them countless dollars annually and allowing large and small business alike to be more efficient and thereby more competitive."