Association of Plastic Recyclers’ 2026 Recycling Leadership Award Celebrates a Breakthrough Collaboration Advancing Takeout Packaging Recyclability
ATLANTA and ST. LOUIS, June 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Anchor Packaging and Pizza Hut® have been awarded the 2026 Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR) Recycling Leadership Award for its new Pizza Hut® wing bowl, a recyclable packaging innovation that keeps chicken wings hot in transit – setting a new standard for delivery and carryout quality. The two companies partnered together to engineer a solution that delivers freshly-made quality – every order, every time.
Anchor Packaging, now part of Georgia-Pacific’s (GP) Foodservice Solutions platform, played a pivotal role in earning the honor for Package Design Innovation. The award was co-presented, underscoring Anchor’s significant contributions to the design and development of the Pizza Hut® Wing Bowl. Anchor’s involvement was essential to the project’s success, demonstrating its expertise and impact in delivering innovative packaging solutions.
The redesigned Pizza Hut Wing Bowl is an innovative step forward for foodservice. It provides superior food protection, ensuring Pizza Hut® customers consistently experience great meals anytime, anywhere. Wings are sauced directly in the container, shortening prep time and improving operational efficiency. Customers can shake the container to recoat the wings, creating freshly made quality for food-to-go, which is critical for foodservice as consumers increasingly turn to take-out.
The Wing Bowl also creates a path for improved foodservice sustainability. Beyond incorporating post-consumer recycled polypropylene (PP) content, it also unlocks a new source of food-grade PP at a previously unavailable scale for recyclers and brands seeking food-grade recycled PP. Its innovative design removes carbon black and excess mineral fillers to improve recyclability – allowing the recovery of more post-consumer material.
“This recognition by the Association of Plastic Recyclers is an exciting moment for Anchor Packaging, as well as for our partner, Pizza Hut®,” said Jeff Wolff, president – Anchor Packaging. “Together, we’ve developed and manufactured an innovative product that excels in food-to-go performance, and its recycled content paves a path to future increases in the use of recycled content by other companies.”
“Receiving this award, shoulder-to-shoulder with Anchor, affirms our commitment to advancing packaging sustainability without compromising quality or efficiency – and highlights the strength of our successful partnership,” said Kat Smith, packaging engineering manager – Pizza Hut® LLC.
The second annual APR Recycling Leadership Awards celebrates leaders who are “Unlocking the Future of Plastics Recycling.” The awards recognize packaging designers, manufacturers, researchers and innovators who are improving recycling for plastics packaging. The winners were announced February 25.
About Georgia-Pacific
Based in Atlanta, Georgia-Pacific and its subsidiaries are among the world’s leading manufacturers and marketers of bath tissue, paper towels and napkins, tableware, paper-based packaging, cellulose and building products. Our familiar consumer brands include Angel Soft®, Brawny®, Dixie®, enMotion®, Quilted Northern®, Sparkle® and Vanity Fair®. Georgia-Pacific has long been a leading supplier of building products to lumber and building materials dealers and large do-it-yourself warehouse retailers. Its Georgia-Pacific Recycling subsidiary is among the world’s largest traders of paper, metal and plastics. The company operates more than 150 facilities and employs approximately 30,000 people directly and creates more than 80,000 jobs indirectly. For more information, visit: gp.com/about-us. For news, visit: news.gp.com. Follow Georgia-Pacific on LinkedIn, Meta, Instagram, X and YouTube.
About Anchor Packaging
Founded in 1963, Anchor Packaging is one of the largest thermoformers in North America and is best known for its award-winning product designs and custom packaging development capabilities. As consumers continue moving toward meals to go, Anchor innovates to empower restaurants, grocery stores, convenience stores, and all foodservice operators to serve this growing demand profitably. Anchor products include Crisp Food Technologies® containers to keep prepared food hot & crispy for hours in a heated display and 30 minutes on the go, Safe Pinch® and Culinary Tamper Safe® tamper-secure containers to provide additional safety for food to go, and many more pioneering lines of containers and cling film designed to protect food and offer consumers sustainable choices after use. Anchor Packaging containers are proudly produced in the USA.
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SOURCE Georgia-Pacific
