Gerber to use plastic food jars

AP 20jun01

FREMONT, Mich -- After nearly six decades, Gerber is all but doing away with the little glass baby-food jars that people have used for making kids' art projects and storing screws, nails, buttons and the like.

The company's applesauce, bananas and pears will now come in cube-shaped plastic containers with snap-on lids.

Eventually most of the company's baby food products will be switched to recyclable plastic.

David Yates, a senior vice president, said Gerber's market research indicates that nearly 70 per cent of consumers prefer baby food in plastic containers. People said plastic is easier to open, stack, store and carry.

Still, many people are going to miss the little glass jars.

Eileen Chadis Wood of Newport News, Va., who teaches crafts at the United Jewish Community Centre of the Virginia Peninsula, has seen the jars become homemade snow-globes and containers for macaroni art. The metal lids can be converted to coasters.

"We've covered them with clay. We've done decoupage. I've used the jar itself for sand art. We've made them into spice jars. We even use it on occasion to make candles, and that wouldn't work with plastic," she said. "And I can't imagine there is a preschool or camp out there that doesn't use them for something every year."

When Gerber was founded in 1928, all its baby food was canned. The company, now owned by Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis AG, continued using cans until 1943, when it switched to glass jars. (AP)