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.
