While almost everyone enjoys a chocolate egg during Easter, the plastic and cardboard packaging typically accounts for over a quarter of the total weight of the most popular Easter eggs on sale, according to Which?.
As more retailers up their sustainability efforts, these are the ones that have so far pledged to reduce the amount of plastic used in their Easter egg packaging:
Waitrose
Last week Waitrose announced it would be halving the single-use plastic on all of its own-brand Easter eggs and confectionery.
Thousands of the grocer’s own-brand Easter eggs will contain 44 per cent less plastic and 18 per cent less cardboard.
Instead, the majority of the Easter egg packaging will now be made from recycled materials, including the Waitrose Squiggle Eggs and Milk Chocolate Hen with Speckled Eggs which are made from 80 per cent recycled content.
Aldi
Aldi has committed to remove plastic packaging from its entire Easter egg range.
The supermarket is switching from plastic packaging to pulp trays on its remaining egg lines, meaning all Easter egg packaging in England and Wales will be plastic-free by the end of the year.
The change will see the removal of 900 tonnes of non-recyclable plastic each year – equating to 24 million pieces of plastic.
It’s part of Aldi’s pledge to halve the volume of plastic packaging used by 2025. This will see it remove 74,000 tonnes – or 2.2 billion single items – of plastic packaging from products over the next five years.
The supermarket, which has been carbon neutral since January 2019, is also on track to have all own-label products as recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2022, and branded products sold at Aldi by 2025.
Co-op
The Co-op is removing plastic packaging from its Easter eggs as part of its ambitious commitment to make 100 per cent of its own-brand packaging easy to recycle by the end of this year.
The grocery chain said it would end the use of plastic inner packaging and windows for all five of its hollow Fairtrade Easter eggs, saving more than 14 tonnes of unnecessary plastic.
“This is a really positive step within the packaging industry, especially for seasonal Easter lines.” Co-op environment manager Iain Ferguson said.
Sainsbury’s
In time for Pancake Day last week, Sainsbury’s revealed it had cut down on the amount plastic packaging for its pancake mix by 86 per cent.
The new pancake cartons are expected to save a total of 25 tonnes of plastic every year.
The grocer remains committed to halving its use of plastic packaging by 2025 and has reduced around 4500 tonnes of own brand and branded primary plastic packaging since 2019.
Click here to sign up to Retail Gazette‘s free daily email newsletter
