H-E-B Develops Eco-Friendly Private Brand

While it started with sponges and toothpaste, new store brand will expand further into personal care and household categories in coming months

Dan Ochwat

11/15/2021

Field & Future by H-E-B is a line of household and personal care products that are kind to Texas families and the environment.

H-E-B has introduced — and is expanding — a line of eco-friendly own brand household and personal care products called Field & Future.

Some items like toothpaste and sponges under the brand were on shelves over the summer but H-E-B officially announced the launch of the new store brand to coincide with Texas Recycles Day and America Recycles Day on Nov. 15, where the San Antonio-based retailer will partner with the program Keep Texas Beautiful to help bring recycling access to more communities throughout Texas. Additional products have hit shelves as well.

Designed with the environment in mind, H-E-B’s private brand Field & Future includes sponges, toothpaste, baby wipes, dish detergent and more featuring hypoallergenic formulas, biodegradable ingredients and recyclable packaging.

The Field & Future lineup currently has more than two dozen products on-shelf, including trash bags and recycling bags, which are made from 65% and 30% post-consumer recycled plastic from H-E-B facilities, respectively.

Field & Future dish sponges (made with plant-based material) and toothpaste (made without fluoride, sulfates, added dyes and artificial flavors) were on shelves over the summer. Most H-E-B locations will soon be also receiving:

All-purpose cleaners, glass cleaner, toilet bowl cleaner, and dish soaps made with plant-derived fragrances and USDA Biobased formulas that are made without dyes, parabens and sulfates;
Feminine care products that are hypoallergenic, made with organic cotton, and are made without color, chlorine and perfumes;
Bath tissue and paper towels made with 100% recycled fibers, a portion of which is post-consumer;
Baby wipes made with only five ingredients and made without fragrance, alcohol, chlorine and parabens.

And in the coming months, the retailer said more Field & Future by H-E-B products are set to hit stores, spanning across household cleaning, laundry, paper and plastic, beauty, personal care, oral care, feminine care and baby.

With input from H-E-B Partners and customers, the retailer created Field & Future by H-E-B to offer products that are kind to the consumer, kind to animals and kind to Texas, the retailer said. “At H-E-B, we’re always looking for better ways to meet the needs of Texans. Many of our partners, customers and communities are on a green journey, and our goal with Field & Future by H-E-B is to meet them wherever they are on that path,” said Bonny Akers, director of H-E-B brand products. “With these environmentally minded products, along with our growing sustainability efforts, we want to take whatever steps we can, big and small, towards improving the wellbeing of our planet, our communities, and ourselves.”

H-E-B is working with Keep Texas Recycling to help fund municipal recycling grants to cities and counties in Texas that need support launching and improving recycling programs. Keep Texas Recycling specializes in building cooperative opportunities for recycling in rural and underserved communities. Ingleside, Texas, is the first grant recipient, and plans to launch a community recycling center next summer.

Earlier this year, H-E-B joined the How2Recycle program to help strengthen recycling efforts in Texas. A clear, easy-to-read labeling system that aims to create common industry standards, How2Recycle labels let customers know if a product’s packaging can be recycled, which parts are recyclable, and importantly, how to prepare material to increase recycling effectiveness. Currently, more than 1,000 H-E-B brand products have How2Recycle labels.

Committed to environmental sustainability, H-E-B recycled more than 527 million pounds of cardboard, plastics, office paper, food waste, metal and truck tires in 2020. Since 2012, H-E-B has contributed more than $13 million to over 500 environmental organizations in land and water conservation, habitat and coastal preservation and community cleanups. This includes more than $2 million in grants to organizations such as Keep Texas Beautiful, Texas Conservation Fund and the Nature Conservancy of Texas.

With approximately 400 stores in Texas and Mexico, San Antonio-based H-E-B is No. 13 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2021 list of top food and consumables retailers in North America.