A polypropylene tub for Cleveland Kitchen’s refrigerated fermented foods is bringing PureCycle Technologies’ recycled PP into a new setting: the grocery shelf.
Cleveland Kitchen is rolling out a 24-oz tub and lid from IPL Schoeller containing 25% post-consumer recycled polypropylene made with PureCycle’s PureFive resin. The companies say it is the first food-contact grocery container made with PureFive to reach full commercial production. The package is also designed to help Cleveland Kitchen get ahead of recycled-content requirements taking shape in states including New Jersey and California.
IPL Schoeller brings scale of its own to the project. The company operates 26 manufacturing locations across North America, Europe and the United Kingdom, following the July 2025 merger of IPL Global and Schoeller Allibert.
For Packaging World, the launch marks the latest step in a technology story we have been following for years.
The purification process behind PureCycle originated at Procter & Gamble, where materials scientist John Layman was tasked around 2014 with finding ways to increase recycled plastic use. Although P&G used large volumes of polypropylene, Layman told PW in a 2019 interview there was essentially no recycled PP in the company’s portfolio because suitable material was difficult to source. The work began as a small internal R&D project, advanced through a series of milestones, and eventually led P&G to license the technology to Innventure, which formed PureCycle to commercialize it.
PureCycle isn’t the only company Innventure has built this way. In 2018, Innventure similarly licensed a separate P&G-developed technology — a flexible, air-frame packaging platform — to launch AeroFlexx, which has since expanded from CPG brands into prestige beauty; Estée Lauder’s Aveda brand recently became the first prestige beauty brand to adopt it for refills. Cleveland Kitchen’s tub is one branch of a model P&G and Innventure have now run more than once: license the in-house R&D, spin it into a standalone company, then bring the resulting material or platform back into commercial packaging.
Unlike processes that break polymers down into their chemical building blocks, the P&G-developed approach dissolves PP and purifies it while keeping the polymer molecule intact. Color, odor, and other impurities can be removed before the PP is returned to pellet form.
PW later covered PureCycle’s move from development to commercial-scale production at its Ironton, Ohio, plant (drawing on an account PureCycle submitted for publication), where the company produced its first pellets from post-industrial recycled material. The facility was designed for 107 million lb of annual production.
More recently, the technology moved into foodservice. At Packaging World’s 2026 Packaging Recycling Summit, Churchill Container and PureCycle detailed the use of purified PP in 100% PCR souvenir cups for sports and entertainment venues. Churchill needed recycled resin that could meet food-contact, appearance, odor, consistency, and processing requirements while running on existing equipment. PureCycle’s ability to remove color and contaminants and tailor melt flow helped make the resin usable as a drop-in material for the cup maker. PW’s own coverage of that session named Erik Johnson, Churchill’s product director, and Christian Bruey, PureCycle’s director of sustainability and external affairs, and reported that Churchill’s Run It Back line already uses the resin in souvenir cups for the Cleveland Browns and the College Football Playoff National Championship.
The Cleveland Kitchen project now brings that progression into retail packaging.
PureCycle says its PureFive resin meets FDA food-contact requirements for a wide range of uses, and is GreenCircle Certified for recycled content, while IPL Schoeller is molding the resin into the tubs and lids.
“Our fermented foods are living products. They deserve packaging that reflects the same commitment to health and the planet that our customers expect from what’s inside the container,” says Luke Visnic, Cleveland Kitchen chief product officer, in the announcement. “Partnering with IPL Schoeller and PureCycle gives us a container with meaningful recycled content, full food-contact compliance, and a credible story we can put right on our label. We’re proud to be ahead of the regulatory curve and even prouder that it didn’t require any compromise on product quality.”
And for IPL Schoeller, the project represents a milestone. “This is a landmark moment for the IPL Schoeller team,” says Melissa Vettleson, IPL Schoeller sustainability and materials engineer, in the announcement. “It further underpins IPL Schoeller’s commitment to the use of reusable and recyclable packaging. IPL Schoeller are leaders in the use of PCR across our European business, and we have been wanting to incorporate recycled polypropylene into the right product in North America for several years with our eye on the PureCycle resin due to its high quality, clarity, and broad use cases. We were just waiting for the right partner to make this a reality.”
“This partnership with PureCycle will allow us to expand our sustainable packaging portfolio with products that deliver on both the environmental and performance expectations brands demand,” adds Julie Barnwell, IPL Schoeller product manager.
The timing is notable. New Jersey’s Recycled Content Law, in effect since 2024, requires rigid plastic containers to contain at least 10% PCR, with the threshold rising to 20% in 2027 as an exemption for food-contact packaging expires. PureCycle’s resin has received conditional approval from the state to qualify as recycled content under the law. PW reported on that approval when New Jersey granted it in May 2026.
In securities filings this summer, PureCycle listed the IPL Schoeller/Cleveland Kitchen collaboration among a slate of injection-molding trials tied to that New Jersey compliance push, and its CEO has estimated the law alone could represent 25 million to 50 million lb of annual PureFive demand — as much as half of the Ironton plant’s total capacity. Beyond New Jersey, the company faces a growing patchwork of state and national extended producer responsibility (EPR) legislation that includes recycled-content mandates or source-reduction targets.
Cleveland Kitchen is hardly alone in leaning on high-volume rigid tubs and lids for food, personal care and household products, and brand owners across categories face growing pressure to show PCR content in their packaging supply chains. That pressure isn’t only regulatory: major national retailers have begun requiring brand owners to demonstrate progress on sustainable packaging commitments as a condition of shelf placement and contract renewal, even as state laws like New Jersey’s set the legal floor.
“The packaging industry’s challenge has always been delivering recycled content without sacrificing food safety or shelf performance,” says Pete Dias, PureCycle’s senior director of market, application and product development, in the announcement. “PureFive resin removes that trade-off entirely. Food safety, regulatory compliance, performance and environmental responsibility no longer have to compete with one another. This launch with Cleveland Kitchen and IPL Schoeller proves the model at commercial scale.”
From a P&G lab project to stadium cups and now a refrigerated grocery tub, the Cleveland Kitchen launch provides another commercial demonstration of purified recycled PP moving into applications where conventional PCR has historically faced significant barriers.
