The to-go cup gets its recycling upgrade at last

Polypropylene cups. The kind used by millions of people every day for cold drinks and takeaway coffees, have cleared a significant recycling milestone in the United States. The label programme How2Recycle,  (managed by the nonprofit GreenBlue) has upgraded polypropylene cups to its ‘widely recyclable’ designation, reflecting that at least 60% of US households can now recycle them either through curbside or drop-off programmes. More than 2 million households gained recycling access in the last four months alone.

The milestone was reached through sustained collaboration between partners including Closed Loop Partners‘ NextGen Consortium, The Recycling Partnership, Starbucks and WM. WM’s investments in recycling facilities and end markets. including a partnership with KW Plastics , created a viable pathway for communities to accept cups curbside. Labels reflecting the new status are expected to begin appearing on products throughout 2026.

The change signals that collaborative, industry-wide efforts can move the needle even for materials previously stuck in recycling’s ‘check locally’ limbo. Whether it meaningfully increases actual recycling rates will depend on how effectively the message reaches consumers. And that, as GreenBlue’s executive director acknowledged, is now the industry’s next challenge.

Should ultra-processed food be treated like tobacco?

A paper published in the Milbank Quarterly is making a provocative argument: researchers from Harvard, the University of Michigan and Duke University contend that ultra-processed foods (UPFs) and cigarettes share the same fundamental design logic. Both engineered to encourage overconsumption, and both linked to serious, widespread health harms.

The paper argues that UPFs are formulated to deliver sugar and fat at doses optimised to trigger pleasure responses while stripping out fibre, protein and water to accelerate digestion and speed the return of appetite. The authors draw five direct parallels with the tobacco industry: dose optimisation, rapid delivery mechanisms, hedonic engineering, environmental ubiquity and deceptive reformulation. They argue that tactics such as ‘low fat’ and ‘sugar free’ labels are the modern food equivalent of the filtered cigarette’s mid-century ‘protective’ marketing.

Their recommended policy toolkit includes clearer labelling, taxes, limits on availability in schools and hospitals and restrictions on marketing to children. Critics of the analogy, however, caution against overreach. Some researchers question whether UPFs are intrinsically addictive in a pharmacological sense, or whether they primarily exploit learned preferences and reward conditioning. The answer has major implications for regulation – both in determining what would work and in gauging how politically realistic a tobacco-style approach to food might be.

Oatly loses its ‘milk’ battle

Plant-based drink maker Oatly has lost a long-running legal battle over its use of the word ‘milk’ in its marketing. The UK Supreme Court ruled that Oatly could neither trademark nor use the phrase ‘post-milk generation’, determining it could confuse people over whether Oatly’s products are completely milk-free or merely low in dairy content.

The dispute centred on regulations that reserve terms including milk, cream, butter and cheese exclusively for animal-derived products. The case was brought after Greenpeace’s Unearthed investigation revealed that Dairy UK had been lobbying for tighter enforcement of dairy term protections since at least 2017. The Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling arrives at a precarious moment for British dairy, with the industry contending with record-low farm numbers, falling retail volumes and collapsing wholesale prices.

Oatly was unsparing in its response. Bryan Carroll, the company’s general manager for the UK and Ireland, said the ruling ‘creates unnecessary confusion and an uneven playing field for plant-based products that solely benefits Big Dairy.’ Legal experts say the implications go well beyond Oatly: the precedent could extend to almond, soy, coconut and other plant-based alternatives, potentially reshaping marketing across the wider alternative dairy sector. In something of a footnote, Oatly is still permitted to sell t-shirts bearing the slogan “post-milk generation”, as trademark law does not apply to clothing.

McCain plants its flag in Yorkshire

McCain Foods has announced a new Farm of the Future in North Yorkshire, its third such commercial-scale regenerative agriculture research site globally. The 202-hectare site will operate as a working farm rather than a demonstration plot, testing practices including controlled traffic farming, year-round soil cover and biodiversity measures under real conditions, with findings to be shared across McCain’s global network of more than 4,000 farmers.

The North Yorkshire farm will also be the first of McCain’s Farms of the Future to pilot a circular nutrient system, in partnership with the University of Leeds’ National Pig Centre, using pig manure to enrich soil and reduce agricultural waste. This is an approach that gestures at the kind of integrated, closed-loop thinking that regenerative agriculture advocates have long called for.

The backdrop is a farming community under pressure. McCain’s own research found that while most British farmers consider sustainable practices essential, many feel uncertain about the future of UK agriculture. As the UK’s largest buyer of British potatoes, the company has real leverage to drive adoption across its supplier base. A commercial-scale demonstration site, validated by an independent academic partner, gives that influence a credible foundation. Potato production at the site is scheduled to begin later this year.

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Diana Kim

Senior Marketing Manager

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