Moo yoghurt tubs and lids made by Technoplas in Adelaide from 100% recycled coastal, but ocean-bound, plastic

Moo Premier Foods managing director Mick Sanders with the resin from recycled plastic used by Technoplas in Adelaide to make the tubs and lids for Moo yoghurt. Moo had to adjust its labelling to "ocean-bound plastic" as distinct from "ocean plastic" (inset) because it came from coastal areas of Malaysia.
Image courtesy Moo Premium Foods

Adelaide yoghurt maker Moo Premium Foods smoothed out a branding clinch in 2023 with the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission in its move to use recycled plastic that was otherwise destined to end in waterways or the oceans.

Mick Sanders, who founded Moo Premium Foods with his wife Sally in 2005, was prompted to source recycled plastic packaging after questions from students at a careers day for Parkside Primary School that his daughter attended. Surprised by the students’ interest and knowledge about environmental issues, family-owned business started working with Adelaide manufacturer TechnoPlas at St Marys and made contact with a Malaysian company that converted waste plastic collected from the ocean, beaches and waterways into food-grade plastic resin.

Moo imported the resin and TechnoPlas moulded it into the yoghurt tubs and lids. This was the first time in Australia that food-grade packaging had been made from 100% reclaimed ocean-bound plastic – plastic waste found in the ocean or within 50 kilometres of a coastline and considered at risk of ending up as marine debris.

Moo ran into trouble with the ACCC for what it said was a misleading claim when it branded its yoghurt as having “100% ocean plastic” tubs. The ACCC said its investigation revealed that the plastic resin used in making MOO’s yoghurt packaging was collected from coastal areas in Malaysia and not directly from the ocean. This prompted MOO to change the branding to “Ocean bound plastic”.

Sanders said about 100 tonnes of plastic – the equivalent to 1.1 million plastic bottles – would be removed from beaches, oceans and waterways in one year alone by the Moo exercise. The change in Moo’s packaging attracted the attention of Woolworths, as part of its commitment to “growing greener”. The supermarket chain would stock Moo’s yoghurts in the 100% reclaimed ocean-bound plastic tubs nationally.

MOO’s 100% reclaimed ocean-bound plastic tubs involved using Malaysia recycling company HHI that partnered with locals to collect washed-up plastic from more than 200 beaches and rivers, in line with strict United Nations ocean plastic collection protocols. This gave work for an underprivileged coastal communities, as well as helping to clear polluted waterways. The collected plastic was then sorted, crushed, washed and melted down into resin that was decontaminated to meets food-grade US FDA 21 CFR 177.1520 test compliance.

HHI also was certified by Zero Plastic Oceans to confirm that the recovered plastics met the ocean bound plastic standards. Moo imported the food-grade plastic resin as US FDA 21 CFR 177.1520 test compliant.