Confectionery in eco-friendly packaging will be available in 500 Tesco stores.
Consumers who buy Mars bars at Tesco in the coming days will notice a change: the usual plastic wrapper of the chocolate bar has been replaced with a more environmentally friendly paper one.
Confectionery manufacturer Mars Incorporated is testing recyclable paper packaging for a limited time: starting Monday, the bars will be available in 500 Tesco stores.
The company wants to explore different types of packaging and how they work in everyday life. It added that it will use the feedback to inform future packaging pilots.
The current plastic wrappers of Mars bars are not recyclable, like some other types of food packaging.
Chips, chocolate, and cheese are traditionally considered the worst foods in terms of packaging recyclability, and major brands have previously come under pressure from consumers and activists to do more to replace wrappers to help the environment.
Mars is not the first confectionery company to try to replace the traditional wrapper with something more environmentally friendly.
Before last Christmas, Quality Street ditched its traditional foil and plastic wrappers in favor of recyclable paper.
The change, made by the brand’s owner, Nestlé, marked the end of shiny plastic wrappers for the first time since its launch in 1936, in favor of the packaging that most local authorities collect for nine of the 11 sweets.
The orange crisp and green triangle remained in foil wrappers because they were not wrapped in a layer of plastic.At the same time, Nestlé also announced that it is switching to KitKat wrappers that are 80% recycled plastic, which will allow them to be recycled in supermarkets across the UK or recycled in households in Ireland.
Mars said it is “exploring different types of alternative packaging solutions” for its confectionery products.
Richard Sutherland-Moore, packaging expert at Mars Wrigley UK’s research and development center, said: “For the Mars bar, the challenge was to find the right paper packaging solution with sufficient barrier properties to protect the chocolate while ensuring food safety, quality and product integrity to prevent food waste.”
Mars said it is investing hundreds of millions of pounds in redesigning thousands of packaging to meet its goal of reducing virgin plastic use by a quarter in the short term, as well as increasing the use of recycled plastic in its packaging.
Andrew Flood, packaging development manager at Tesco, said that Mars’ trial of the new Mars bar packaging is in line with the retailer’s own “strategy of eliminating plastic and packaging in our business where we can, reducing where we can’t, reusing and recycling what’s left.” However, not all attempts to reduce the use of plastic food packaging have been successful with customers.
In April, Sainsbury’s had to defend its decision to vacuum-pack all ground beef, becoming the first UK retailer to do so, after customers criticized the new packaging, calling it “very medical,” “too compressed” and “disgusting.”
In response to the criticism, the supermarket said the new packaging would more than halve the amount of plastic used per pack, saving 450 tons of plastic a year, and assured customers that the minced meat in the new packs is “exactly the same, made on the same machines” as in previous packs.