Iceland Foods is removing plastic and paper bags from its online deliveries, in a trial aimed at cutting down its packaging waste.
This week the supermarket told customers in the trial areas – which include West Yorkshire – that its home deliveries were “going bagless” from 10 January.
Currently, Iceland customers have the option to pay for their deliveries to come in either paper or reusable woven or insulated freezer bags, at a cost of 30p per bag.
Iceland is removing the option in trial areas, with all groceries now instead delivered loose in crates. Raw meat and cleaning products will still be wrapped in plastic bags for safety reasons, however.
Delivery drivers would be given “extra time” at the doorstep to help customers unpack their orders, the supermarket said.
“We are currently trialling bagless deliveries in a number of areas as we seek continued ways to improve our service to customers,” an Iceland spokesman told The Grocer.
The supermarket did not confirm how long the trials would last, nor which specific areas in which the trial is running.
If rolled out further, it would bring Iceland in line with Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Asda, which began phasing out plastic bags from online orders in 2019. Waitrose removed all single-use bags from all online and click & collect orders in 2021.
Iceland had removed all single-use plastic bags from online deliveries, but had delayed going completely bagless until now due to uncertainty over the impact on its frozen products, which make up the majority of baskets, The Grocer understands. It would look to go bagless across its whole delivery network if the trial is a success.
Plastic bag use increasing across the supermarkets
It comes after the number of single-use plastic bags sold in England increased for the first time last year since the introduction of the mandatory 5p charge in 2015, bar 2020 when the charge was lifted during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Supermarkets like Morrisons – which committed to completely remove plastic bags from online deliveries in 2019 – have blamed a rise in online and on-demand deliveries for the 7% rise.
Iceland has made significant packaging pledges before, most notably in 2018 when it committed to remove all plastic from its own label packaging by the end of 2023.
It later u-turned on the commitment after admitting that the “challenges of the Covid pandemic and the rate of change within the industry” meant it was no longer achievable.
Iceland set out new targets in its latest ESG report, and now aims to reduce its overall packaging use by 5% per annum between 2025 and 2028. It claimed to have reduced its total own label plastic packaging by 51% last year.
In August 2024, Iceland announced a major switch across all of its own label beef and pork mince lines from plastic trays to vacuum packaging. It hailed the move as helping it to reduce packaging per product by 50%.
However, The Grocer revealed that Iceland had quietly scrapped vacuum packaging a mere five months later, switching back to “classic” plastic trays, citing customer demand.
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