TORONTO – KFC Canada announced the quick-service restaurant chain will begin piloting its first home compostable bucket and that all consumer-facing packaging will be fully home compostable by 2025.

KFC Canada said the home compostable consumer packaging initiative will divert nearly 200 million pieces of packaging from Canadian landfills each year. KFC Canada is partnering with Briony Douglas, a Toronto-based artist, who agreed to design and create an iconic KFC bucket installation made entirely of home compostable materials. The installation, which Douglas will complete over 25 days – a nod to the 2025 commitment, will be revealed on June 30.

“Our packaging is a part of our heritage and our storytelling. Beyond its iconic image, we want KFC’s packaging to be forward-thinking, inspiring, and to champion functionality, food safety and eco-friendly solutions,” said Armando Carrillo, Innovation Manager, KFC Canada. “We have continued to accelerate our efforts and push the boundaries to bring more environmentally sustainable packaging solutions to market, including our recent move to bamboo poutine buckets. A fully home compostable packaging line is the ultimate win for us and for the environment.”

This most-recent initiative follows previous efforts the company has made to lessen the environmental footprint of its restaurants. As part of KFC Canada's sustainability journey, the company began testing a new fiber-based “spork,” made from bamboo, corn and sugarcane. In November 2020, select restaurants began testing cutlery that naturally decomposes at room temperature and requires no additional treatment, nor does it leave any toxic by-products.

Also in 2020, KFC Canada announced that bamboo would become a permanent packaging solution for poutine and chicken and that by the end of 2021, KFC Canada will have removed 12 million plastic poutine containers from its operations by transitioning to bamboo.

In 2019, KFC Canada pledged to eliminate all non-recoverable or non-reusable plastic-based packaging by 2025. KFC Canada removed all plastic straws and bags from its restaurants by the end of 2019 and eliminated 50 million plastic straws and 10 million plastic bags across the country and replaced them with fiber-based alternatives.

“One of our leading principles at KFC Canada is feeding people, not landfills. The move to 100% home compostable consumer packaging is a bold and ambitious step we are taking to inspire positive change in the communities we operate in,” said Nivera Wallani, president and general manager, KFC Canada. “We embrace our responsibility to drive meaningful change across the industry and work closely with our suppliers, franchisees and team members to continuously lessen KFC’s environmental footprint.”