Century Pacific, Shakey’s PH now 100% ‘plastic-neutral’

Shakey’s Pizza Parlor Restaurant along CM Recto at Limketkai Center, Cagayan de Oro City. (PHOTO CREDIT: https://www.cdodev.com/2013/07/04/new-shakeys-store-nears-completion/)

Po family-led food manufacturer Century Pacific Food and restaurant chain operator Shakey’s Pizza Asia Ventures have officially attained their 2020 goal to be 100-percent “plastic-neutral.”

Being “plastic-neutral” means a company is able to recover the amount of plastic equal to what it uses and convert it into energy.

In 2019, both Century Pacific and Shakey’s Pizza teamed up with leading cement-maker Republic Cement and Friends of Hope, an impact company, to co-process post-consumer plastic waste as fuel for cement production, promoting this as an alternative to coal.

Co-processing uses heat to destroy and recover any thermal or mineral properties of waste materials, so that these can be used in cement processing in a single, combined operation.

The partnership with Republic Cement was meant to “balance out our environmental effects”, Christopher Po, president of Century Pacific Group, the parent firm of both Century Pacific Food and Shakey’s Pizza, said in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) on Friday.

“Our brands represent quality, value-for-money products. We hope that they will eventually stand for responsible consumption as well,” he said.

At a high temperature of 1,450°C, co-processed waste leaves zero residue.
The two Po-led companies marked their first year of being “100 percent plastic-neutral” last January 2020.

“Consumer companies face significant cost and performance challenges in finding more sustainable alternatives to plastic. While co-processing is not the perfect solution, it can mitigate the environmental impact of plastic usage,” Po said.