Cuts annual plastic use by 350 million tonnes

Grocery giant Tesco announced that it will become the first UK retailer to remove plastic wrapped tinned multipacks from store shelves, and replace them with plastic-free mutlibuys.  According to Tesco, this will eliminate 350 million tonnes of plastic per year from the environment. Tesco sells 183,000 multipacks daily. The new policy will help more than eight million households in the UK reduce the amount of plastic they use, and contribute to Tesco’s commitment to remove 1 billion pieces of plastic from its own brand products by the end of 2020.

Dave Lewis, CEO of Tesco said:

“We are removing all unnecessary and non-recyclable plastic from Tesco. As part of this work, removing plastic wrapped multipacks from every Tesco store in the UK will cut 350 tonnes of plastic from the environment every year and customers will still benefit from the same great value ‘multipack’ price. This is part of our plan to remove 1 billion pieces of plastic in 2020.”

Engaging suppliers on plastic reduction

The change required buy-in from suppliers, as it applies to branded products as well as Tesco’s own brand products. Georgiana de Noronha, President of Kraft Heinz Northern Europe, said:

 “We’re excited to be partnering with Tesco on this. While we know we have more to do, this initiative is good news for the environment, and for the millions of people who enjoy Heinz varieties every day, as they’ll still be able to benefit from the same great value for money.”

Tesco has been actively engaging suppliers in its strategy to remove non-recyclable and excess packaging from its business. In August 2019, Tesco notified 1,500 suppliers that packaging will be a factor in its decisions on which products are sold in its stores.