Recycled Pizza Boxes Hungry For a Bigger Slice of the Market

New York, NY — The Green Box pizza box, made of recycled cardboard and designed to reduce waste, has been picked up for nationwide distribution by FoodBizSupply.com.

The Green Box, created by E.C.O. Inc., looks like any other pizza box, but it contains 100 percent recycled content. Because recycling centers do not take paper or cardboard that is soiled by food, they do not accept pizza boxes. The Green Box takes a type of packaging that would get throw away anyway and turns it into something with a second purpose.

The top of the box is perforated so that it can be torn into 4 squares - to use instead of paper plates or dishes that would need to be washed - and the bottom can be folded in half for storing pizza instead of using aluminum foil or containers.

FoodBizSupply.com is an online distributor that focuses on products with a sustainable side to them, and is the latest addition to Green Box's distribution network.

"They have a very wide, broad range of customers," said William Walsh, founder and CEO of E.C.O. "It's a different level of customer, too. It's a customer that is much more socially aware, so I feel the partnership and having distribution through FoodBizSupply is going to be key to our business."

The Green Box is also being distributed to Italian restaurants through Roma Foods, and through the northeast U.S. by Mansfield Paper and Imperial Bag and Paper.

Walsh said he is searching for other nationwide distributors, and that a major organic grocer, which he could not name, is using the Green Box on a regional basis. In addition, two of the top pizza chains are conducting tests and market research on the box.

Green Box's website will be getting a facelift soon, Walsh said, and will include a way for people to find restaurants and pizza shops that use the Green Box, as well as a way for restaurants to find Green Box distributors.