(PRESS RELEASE) Products in the Vital Essentials line will be undergoing some changes, advancing sustainability initiatives to significantly reduce the total volume of packaging material consumed in daily manufacturing operations. The efforts to reduce the overall volume of packaging material will span across all of the rapidly growing brands — Vital Essentials, VE RAW BAR and Vital Cat, which are sold at more than 6,000 independent pet specialty retailers in the U.S., online at Chewy.com and Amazon, and in 14 international markets across the globe.
The first phase will take effect on Oct. 1 with new product packaging and shipping materials used for the company’s VE RAW BAR freeze-dried snacks for cats and dogs. “New product packaging will reduce the amount of plastic usage by 15 percent,” said Brian Lakari, VP of operations.
In conjunction with this change, master shipping cases will be converted to 100 percent recycled cardboard. Case configurations are also being adjusted to increase pack density, reducing overall box usage by 30 percent per year. “Taking into account our rapidly ascending sales trajectory, the impacts of decisions we make today will be even greater into the future as we continue to grow,” Lakari said.
This is good news for the company’s distribution center as well as its national and international distributors. These changes will decrease the warehouse space required by one-third for each VE RAW BAR product warehoused.
“We’re looking at making incremental changes across the company so we can be better stewards of our resources and at the same time, reduce our overall impact on the environment,” said Lanny Viegut, CEO and owner. “We continue to challenge our team to get better and be better. Our hope is that these measures will aid in offsetting rising costs in other areas of our business.”
veraw.com
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