Important Change to Coyote Camp Packaging

Coyote Camp Fireline Chow was born on a fireline in Colorado in 1997 while Coyote Camp’s owner served on a wildland fire crew.

The primary goal of Coyote Camp has always been to help meet the field nutritional needs of Fire Crews on the line.  Since Day 1, our goal of providing a wide range of ready-to-eat meals that are durable, diverse in their components, and relatively well-rounded nutritionally has been at the forefront of our efforts.

The question of meal packaging was not at the top of our list of concerns for the first 20 years of Coyote Camps existence. But 7 years ago we began to see a bit of a dilemma for Coyote Camp – in the packaging material we’ve used. If we read the news correctly, it turns out the plastic packaging we’ve long thought of as recyclable are, in practice, largely discarded as solid waste. We learned that only about 9% of post-consumer plastics are recycled in the larger scheme of things. The other 91% go elsewhere, presumably a landfill or as litter.

On a recent trip to a coastal area, we began to see first-hand the effects non-recycled plastics washing ashore in the coastal community we visited. Micro-plastics and macro-plastics were showing up on what is, by any measure, a very beautiful coastline. The community responded by placing special plastic waste containers near the water for both locals and visitors to deposit the plastic flotsam they encounter on their coastline.

Such a community-wide and pro-active response is incredible and useful for all involved. We were glad to do our share during our stay. And yet…the question arises: What more can we do? What can we, as a business do to reduce the environmental cost of producing our meals? Nearly all human actions carry an environmental cost. The question is: How can we reduce our environmental cost of doing business?

We’ve answered that question by moving forward with 3 changes to our meal build-outs for 2025:

• Replace the 6mm poly bag pouches we’ve used since 1997 with durable recyclable/compostable kraft padded pouches.
• Replace the 10 oz plastic juice beverage container with 10 oz aluminum beverage containers. Aluminum has a well-established post-consumer recycling pathway.
• Replace the plastic flatware kits in each meal with bamboo flatware kits. Bamboo is a type of grass – both fast growing and biodegradable.

We are hopeful that you – our highly valued Customers – and fellow Firefighters – will support our efforts to reduce the environmental cost of producing Coyote Camp meals.

As always, we remain open and keenly interested in your suggestions or inputs in the ways and means of continuing to meet your field nutritional needs. Please email us anytime with any additional suggestions you may feel we can incorporate into our meals. We’d like to hear about them!

Thanks!