Tesco swaps glass bottles for plastic on own-brand spirits

Jill Park, packagingnews.co.uk, 04 March 2010

 

Tesco is trialling plastic bottles for its own-brand spirits to replace glass containers as part of a raft of measures aimed at cutting its carbon footprint.

 

The supermarket giant, which has signed up to the second phase of the Courtauld Commitment, has moved its own-brand brandy into plastic bottles, which it said reduced packaging by 86% and saving 200,000kg of material.

 

Tesco added that using plastic bottles also meant a reduction in outer packaging as "plastic is more durable than glass and needs less protection".

 

"Tesco is always breaking new ground with innovative approaches to packaging," said Tesco executive director Lucy Neville-Rolfe.

 

"However, more significantly we're working with our suppliers so that we reach our target of a 30% reduction in the carbon impact of the products in our supply chain by 2020."

 

Tesco already supplies wine in Tetra Paks and PET bottles and has recently launched a 300g glass wine bottle, which is 30% lighter than its previous best.

 

Britain's largest retailer has also revealed that packaging accounts for 2% of the carbon footprint of its Jaffa oranges, which have become the latest products to be carbon footprinted.

 

So far the retailer has carbon footprinted 500 products. The result of which has been to show that packaging accounts for only a small part of the overall footprint.