Our journey has taken three years and taken us across three continents to find a solution.. we are almost there.

Our journey to find   “Ocean Friendly” packaging.

After perfecting the unique taste of our organic tortilla chips, Terry  took a hard look at the packing film being used to package our gourmet chips.

As surfers we are intimately involved with our oceans. We see way too much single use plastic on our beaches and in our oceans. A lot of the plastic out there currently can be recycled, however, the reality is only a very small percentage of Southern Californians  recycle their snack food packages. Our research over the last three years shows that 80% of “all” flexible film plastic chip bags end up in a landfill with no recycling and no composting, a virtual tomb. Environmentalists estimate that more than a trillion square inches of snack packaging end up in American landfills each year where the conditions are not optimal for conventional product breakdown. Many products on the market claim to be biodegradable but are in fact only compostable, and are unable to degrade in a landfill environment. Some simply break down into small plastic flakes known as ‘Bio Fragmentation”.

A lot of bio-films for the snack food industry have pitfalls. By now, we all know the story of a major snack company who entered the market with the “world’s first fully compostable bag” in January 2010.  The company withdrew them in early October 2010 after their “green” claims got burned in the social media marketplace. The “noise” was just one factor of the now-discredited PLA-content bag being pulled from the shelf and the company returning  to traditional non-compostable bags. Not only was the bag noisy, it could not be recycled and would only compost in an industrial composting facility. Of all the composting facilities out there …less than 10% can actually compost PLA snack bags.

Plant-based plastics appeal to green-minded consumers thanks to their renewable origins, but we found their production carries environmental costs that make them less green than they may seem. Most biopolymers currently used in packaging are commonly derived from agricultural products-predominantly corn and sugar cane-the primary impacts include fertilizers and pesticides use, water and energy use. In addition, the crops, particularly corn, may be genetically modified.  Also the food vs industrial use debate raises land use and social benefit issues. Also it seems that the production process for some biopolymers may emit problematic emissions more than many petroleum-based polymers. Impacts of this life-cycle phase  include energy use and associated emissions.  Also  a lot of these  pure biopolymers have limitations in regards to warehousing and the high speed bagging process of filling tortilla chip bags .

Another area of concern  has been the recent aggressive moves by lawmakers  and  the Federal Trade Commission in regards to products that have the claim “biodegradable” on their products.  Legislation has even sought to outlaw all biodegradable products that do not meet a very narrow standard of commercial compostability (a standard that, tellingly, was designed around corn plastic). Frankly, there’s no point in making a chip bag that is compostable and then sending it to a landfill – where 80% of all plastic chip bags end up.

We feel that the guidelines and demands that the grocery industry has developed thus far for tortilla chips has to be the starting place, the framework if you will, to guide our actions and be the catalyze for our innovation. Truly sustainable packaging for our tortilla chips must be in alignment with the whole-systems principles of organic, cradle to cradle, taking the natural steps toward zero waste,  fair trade with consideration of price,  performance, viability and availability. Testing different biofilms without assumption has given us insight into what really matters to consumers and their very busy lifestyle.

Our customers have told us to find a “plastic packaging” solution they can embrace ….and   the Whale Tail Chip bag solution will improve what it replaces. We did not want to make it harder on our customers. Today’s economy is already making it harder to do practically everything.

At  Whale Tails Chips we now have a commercially viable film that meets our distributors and vendors demands for price and shelf life.   The film is 69% degradable in a municipal landfill that is void of heat, pressure, light, and oxygen.

At Whale Tails Chips we maintain a positive attitude about all efforts in the snack food industry to reverse the environmental pollution caused by plastics in our oceans. Today, information spreads quickly through chat rooms, message boards, emails, and websites regarding bio-films and bio-plastics. Unfortunately, not all of it is accurate or correct. We all know that plastic is useful and necessary in certain situations like keeping the food products we consume safe.

Our Whale Tails Tortilla Chip package does not jeopardize the integrity of our product nor will it jeopardize the consumer’s experience with our product. We are currently working with TekPak Solutions in Canada to develop a 100% degradable tortilla chip bag that delivers on multiple consumer needs and that actually fulfills the need-—a ” consumer-friendly” eating container that also solves the disposal issue.