Research by the retailer found that three quarters (74%) of consumers surveyed would have sustainability in mind when making purchasing decisions – an increase of 36% year-on-year.
Tesco’s Christmas packaging plans followed the announcement that it would stop using plastic trays to pack fresh, whole chickens from next year. It has also committed to cutting the overall weight of plastic used to package its whole fresh birds by 30%.
Annual plastic savings
Last month the retailer announced it would change the packaging of its own-label hard cheeses to save 260 tonnes of plastic annually.
Tesco quality director Sarah Bradbury said: “It is an absolute priority of ours to remove and reduce the amount of plastic in our stores to the minimum and ensure everything we use is recycled and kept out of the environment – Christmas time is no exception and we want to do our bit to help customers have more sustainable celebrations.”
Four R strategy
“The removal of plastic from Christmas products comes as development teams across Tesco have been looking for ways to use less plastic as a part of its 4Rs packaging strategy: To remove it where it can, reduce where it can't, reuse more and recycle what's left. This will see Tesco remove all excess and non-recyclable material from its business.”
Plastic packaging will also be reduced across packs of Christmas cards, Christmas crackers and Christmas lights.
Meanwhile, Young's Seafood has met all its 2020 targets for packaging reduction ahead of the end of year deadline it set.
The company said it had successfully removed more than 170 tonnes of unnecessary paper packaging and 300 tonnes of plastic packaging in the process, following a review of its entire product range – including own-label lines.
