MANCHESTER, England, 2017-May-12 — /EPR Retail News/ — The Co-op is set to take a huge slice out of the amount of waste sent to landfill with the introduction of new, ground-breaking pizza packaging.
Corrugated cardboard pizza discs have replaced polystyrene across the convenience store operator’s 17 own-brand pizzas, which will prevent 200 tonnes of polystyrene boards going to landfill, and create almost 450 tonnes of cardboard for recycling annually.
The market-leading boards on the pizzas, which are manufactured by Stateside, also have a lower carbon impact weighing less than a third of their nearest competitors* and becoming comfortably the lightest on the market.
Later this month, the Co-op could become the only retailer to set a target to make 100% of its own-brand packaging recyclable. Its members will vote at the Co-op’s annual AGM on 20 May to decide.
With an immediate target of making 80 per cent of own-brand packaging recyclable by 2020, some of the other innovations recently introduced to achieve this include changing black to widely recycled blue plastic for mushrooms, and swapping to a single plastic material for cooked meat trays.
The Co-op will also be moving from black plastic to card packaging for tomatoes later this year.
Iain Ferguson, Environment Manager at the Co-op, said: “Pizza discs have been high on our priority list for some time, and we’ve been working hard to find the right replacement. This change is a major step in our journey to make all of our packaging easy to recycle, and we will be making further announcements on packaging in the months ahead.”
*.Co-op discs weigh 20g, versus Waitrose solid discs weighing 70g
Media Contact:
Aimi McNeill
Press and Media Manager (Food)
0161 6924286
07739 657585
aimi.mcneill@co-operative.coop
coop.co.uk
Source: CO-OP