United Kingdom-based retailer Aldi has become the first in the country to do away with plastic packaging for multipacks of tinned tuna, the supermarket chain announced on 28 August.
Starting in mid-September, over 270 Aldi locations will sell four-packs of Tuna Chunks in Brine with a cardboard sleeve instead of plastic as part of a four-month trial. The participating stores are located across the U.K., including in the Midlands, the North West, and the South East. If the trial is successful, the retailer will roll out the new recyclable sleeve nationally to more than 830 U.K. stories, effectively saving over 11 metric tons of plastic each year, Aldi said.
“We’re constantly reviewing our product range to remove and replace single-use and hard-to-recycle plastic packaging. We’ve introduced a number of initiatives to reduce unnecessary plastic already this year, and we’re particularly excited to be trialling the cardboard tuna sleeve, given it’s a first for the UK supermarket sector,” explained Fritz Walleczek, the managing director of corporate responsibility at Aldi UK and Ireland, in a press release.
“Cutting waste is such an important part of everything we do at Aldi, and these packaging innovations are another example of us doing just this,” Walleczek added.
Aldi has set a target of making its own private label packaging either recyclable, reusable, or compostable by 2022. The retailer also aims to reduce plastic packaging by 25 percent by the end of 2023.
Several packaging initiatives are set to be trialed by Aldi in the next few months, as the company looks to discontinue its use of all hard-to-recycle plastic – such as undetectable black plastics, PVC, and expanded polystyrene – by 2020. In addition to its tuna packaging trial, Aldi set out to launch recyclable colored ready meal trays, made from recycled plastic material, across all stores last month, in August. The new trays, produced from pre-used bottles and containers, differ in color and were initially deployed as part of the retailer’s Aldi’s Inspired Cuisine range.
