Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas launches new sustainability initiative

The Arrowhead Stadium, home venue of the Kansas City Chiefs football team, is set to become the first professional sports venue to sell pre-packed peanuts in compostable bags.

The pilot initiative will be launched at a game this week on November 26, when compostable peanut bags will be sold throughout general concessions and in-seat vending.

After the pilot phase, the goal is to expand sales to other areas of the Arrowhead Stadium and replace a larger amount of the 15,000 bags of peanuts sold in the venue annually.

The initiative comes under the “Extra Yard for the Environment” programme of the stadium- an ambitious effort to promote sustainability both across the stadium and throughout the community, and aims to ameliorate Arrowhead’s waste-diversion methods.

It constitutes a partnership between BASF- one of the world’s leading chemical companies, Aramark- a food services company and Hampton Farms- a peanuts farming business selling more than 1.1 million bags to sporting venues annually and therefore playing an important role in the transformation of snack packaging in sports venues.

Carl Mittleman, President of Aramark’s Sports and Entertainment division said: “With peanuts being among the best-selling snack foods at sports events, the introduction of this compostable peanut bag is a potential game-changer”.

“We’re proud to be at the forefront of driving innovative solutions that decrease our environmental impact and enhance the game-day experience”, he added.

The project’s development process took 18 months where the three partners converted all parties of the supply chain to deliver a compostable peanut bag and divert peanut bags from the landfill.

BASF worked with Missouri Organic Recycling to test packaging prototypes and meet composting guidelines to create the first-of-its kind commercially available peanut bag.

Brandon Hamilton, Chiefs Vice President of Stadium Operations said: “Over the past few years we have put an increased focus on our sustainability program, Extra Yard for the Environment, and have worked to find new, innovative ways to reduce our organization’s carbon footprint”.

“We are excited to unveil this product, as we believe it will have a positive impact on our efforts in Arrowhead Stadium and will also spread to other venues to make a positive change within the industry”.

Rick McGee, Vice President of Sales, Hampton Farms underlined the momentum across the sports and entertainment industry about reducing landfill waste.

“This bag represents an exciting future for us as well as for our customers”, he said.