Waitrose has become the latest supermarket pledging to permanently remove multibuy shrinkwrap on own label tinned grocery products.
The plastic wrap is used to keep three or four cans attached for convenience, but it can’t always be recycled. Waitrose began trials of removing the shrinkwrap last year.
The retailer stated that removing the shrinkwrap from lines such as baked beans, kidney beans, sweetcorn, chopped tomatoes and tuna will save around 45 tonnes of single-use plastic a year.
The plastic has already been removed from cans of essential Waitrose kidney beans and sweetcorn with others following in the next few months. The vast majority of multibuy cans will now be available loose, with the exception of tuna and tomatoes, which will move to a card sleeve that can be recycled.
Waitrose highlighted that the move comes amid record sales of tinned food as consumers stock up on store cupboard goods during the pandemic. The retailer said sales of tinned food remains strong with many products currently up by 50% compared to last year.
“Our essential Waitrose tinned food has been selling in record numbers since March and we want to ensure that we can continue to give customers the best quality and value, without passing on the plastic on such popular products,” said Canned Food Buyer Claire Mitchell.
“Our customers expect us to keep tackling plastic, which includes eliminating single use shinkwrap on our multibuys. This is a significant step towards our plan to phase out non-recyclable plastic from all our packaging by 2021.”
Tesco announced back in January that it was ending the sale of plastic-wrapped multipacks of tinned food.
