Columbia, South Carolina. October 8, 2015 – Interstate Container will unveil its latest Greencoat ‘hybrid’ wax-free coated cabbage box at PMA’s 2015 Fresh Summit in Atlanta. Greencoat boxes offer key financial and environmental advantages over packaging materials commonly used to pack fresh produce: wax cascaded boxes and reusable plastic crates (RPCs).
Interstate Container’s approach is to work Hand-In-Hand with growers and their customers, who are increasingly mandating a change to sustainable packaging: national supermarkets, foodservice distributors, quick service restaurants (QSR) and casual dining restaurant chains.
Recently Interstate Container teamed up with national grocer Sav-A-Lot, with 1300 locations, major produce supplier Northhampton Growers, and Global Green. In this trial, Northampton Growers converted all its 50-pound cabbage boxes to Interstate Container’s Greencoat 100% recyclable boxes. More than 75,000 boxes of cabbage were shipped over 750 miles from Northampton Growers’ packing shed in Moultrie, GA to Sav-A-Lot’s distribution center and stores in St. Louis, MO. [1]
Greencoat Wax-Free Boxes vs. Cascaded Wax Boxes
For growers, Greencoat hybrid cabbage boxes are strong and less costly than wax cascaded boxes, offering needed performance and savings to both farmers and packers.
For retailers, foodservice, and restaurant chains, Greencoat not only eliminates the need to pay up to $70/ton to landfill wax boxes but also ensures a steady revenue stream of up to $80/ton from recycling Greencoat with Old Corrugated Containers (OCC).
“Every truckload of cabbage en route to a retailer contains one ton of wax boxes, around 770 boxes,” says Jeff Cormier, Interstate Container Sales Manager. “The retailer then has to pay to dispose of – landfill – these wax boxes, that can never be recycled and that never biodegrade.”
Greencoat Wax-Free Boxes vs. RPCs
For growers and packers, Greencoat eliminates RPC tracking, additional charges for RPC damage, and the risk of packing in unhygienic RPCs. As researchers from the University of California Davis and the University of Guelph found, RPCs are often still contaminated when delivered to produce packers. [2, 3]
For retailers, Greencoat boxes can be knocked down, instead of stored and back-hauled, then recycled for revenue generation.
About Interstate Container
Interstate Container combines local presence with global experience as a division of Interstate Resources, Inc., employing over 1500 people in the US, and a member of the multinational INDEVCO Group. The company’s reach spans the Eastern and Southern US with 12 manufacturing plants and 7 warehouses located in the New England, Mid-Atlantic, East and South regions.
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Contact Info
Jeff Cormier, National Sales & Marketing Manager
Interstate Container
128 Crews Drive
Columbia, SC 2921
Tel: 410-221-1508
Email: Jeff.Cormier@interstatecontainer.com
Website: www.interstatecontainer.com; www.greencoat.net