Sustainable packaging conversions sound clean in a marketing deck and operate messy on the line. Mono-material recyclable film does not behave identically to multilayer laminate on existing form-fill-seal equipment, BC Recycle and Quebec EEQ extended-producer-responsibility fees price multilayer aggressively in 2026, and material cost during the conversion year typically runs 18 to 28 percent above the legacy material until volume rebalances. The strategic problem was sequencing the conversion across SKUs without triggering line-speed drops that would compromise retail fill-rate during the transition.

17 SKUs converted to mono-material across 11 months, material cost premium narrowing from 23% in Month 1 to 8% by Month 11 as volume rebalanced, EPR fee category secured at the favorable mono-material rate in BC and Quebec, and the brand earning a sustainability call-out from two anchor retailers in their year-end ESG reporting.