It’s hard to find the perfect packaging for yogurt. That’s because packaging has to do all sorts of things well, like keep yogurt fresh and safe, and help keep the environment healthy. It has to be affordable, and the right size, too. Of course, Lily also wants it to look nice!
We think our latest packaging does a good job. But new packaging possibilities are always popping up, so we’re always looking for ways to improve.
About Our Polypropylene #5 Yogurt Cups
We use plastic containers for our yogurt, because glass containers, with their heavier weight, use more energy and produce more global warming gases than plastic. And the manufacturing of paper containers creates dioxins, which are some of the most toxic chemicals known to man and are considered by the Environmental Protection Agency to have no safe level of exposure. Paper containers must also be plastic-lined, which makes them non-recyclable in a mixed-paper recycling stream.
We used to package our yogurt in high-density polyethylene (HDPE) #2 cups, because we thought this was the most recyclable material. But we learned that many recycling centers that generally accept HDPE #2 plastic for recycling, don’t recycle wide-mouthed #2 yogurt cups, because the wide-mouthed cups have a melting point that’s different from other #2 packaging. Our #2 yogurt cups were ending up in landfills.
The manufacturing of our polypropylene (PP) # 5 cups requires less resin than that of #2 cups. So less energy (electricity and gas) and fewer resources are used to produce our PP #5 cups. And because they have thinner walls, our #5 cups make less waste than #2 cups.
Recycling Our Cups
If you’d like to recycle your Brown Cow yogurt cups but can’t find a recycler who’ll take them, you can mail them to us and we’ll send them on for recycling.
Brown Cow Farm
Cup Recycling
3810 Delta Fair Blvd.
Antioch, CA 94509.
About Our Foil Lids
We used to cap our cups with a plastic lid and a plastic inner seal, but we’ve switched to a foil lid. Our durable foil lid locks in our yogurt’s fresh-from-the-farm taste, and keeps more than 125 tons of material out of landfills and incinerators each year! This lid change has reduced our packaging by more than 15%!
Plastic Lids for Leftovers
Of course, with foil lids, you can’t reseal your cup to save leftovers. But if you’d like a couple of plastic lids for saving leftover yogurt, just let us know and we’ll gladly mail them to you. Order your free lids.
About Our 6-ounce Serving Size
We used to sell our yogurt in an 8-ounce cup. While some folks liked the 8-ounce serving size, many found it too much yogurt to eat at once. Most find our current 6-ounce serving the perfect size for a nutritious, wholesome treat. And, yes, the yogurt inside our 6-ounce cups is still the same creamy, delicious Brown Cow yogurt you’ve always loved!
Questions?
If you have a question or comment, feel free to contact us , or drop us a line at 1-888-HAY-Lily.