Tesco Ireland is set to trial new recyclable, paper-based packs for its 1kg new season potatoes, in addition to reducing the amount of plastic used in its 2.5kg potato packaging.
These step changes will commence on a 12-week trial basis in 100 stores, with plans to roll out the changes to more products if the trial is successful. Over the course of the trial, more than 130,000 packs of Irish grown new season early Premier and Queens potatoes are expected to be sold across Ireland in the new packaging.
The new paper bags will carry a green ‘widely recycled’ logo and can be recycled at home using kerbside collection infrastructure. The single-ply bags are sourced from Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) accredited material and replace the existing plastic 1kg bags.
The plastic components of the 2.5kg potato paper bag, which contained a non-recyclable net window, will be removed.
This packaging change will initially cover Tesco’s range of ‘New Season Early Potatoes’ and is projected to reduce the amount of paper used in the retailer’s 2.5kg new season potatoes bag by 30% and remove almost 50,000 non-recyclable 1kg new season plastic bags from the waste system annually.
Joe Manning, commercial director at Tesco Ireland, comments: “Working with our partners at Country Crest, this change to our potato packaging means that customers can enjoy the best of new season Irish grown Tesco potatoes even more as the packaging will be fully recyclable through the at-home recycling infrastructure.”
“We aspire to use as little packaging as possible. Where we can’t remove packaging, we aim to reduce it to an absolute minimum, and we do so with recyclability in mind. As part of this work, we also recently became the first retailer in Ireland to create a recycling solution for soft plastics where we have in-store collection points in each of our 151 stores.”
