Heinz and Tesco have kicked off a trial which will see Beanz snap pots made from recycled soft plastic collected from Tesco’s in-store collection points.
The trial is being touted as the first of its kind, and is expected to recycle 22 tonnes of plastic “while retaining what makes snap pots so popular with consumers, which is the product’s convenience and ability to be microwaved whilst keeping the product fresh”, said Heinz.
Soft plastics – lightweight plastics such as film lids from yoghurts and ready meals – are notoriously difficult to recycle, with only 6% of soft plastics in the UK being recycled as of 2020, according to Heinz.
Tesco started collecting it in its large stores in 2021 ahead of this pilot. Heinz and Tesco also worked with Plastic Energy, SABIC and Berry Global on the development of the scheme.
Heinz northern Europe president Jojo de Noronha said the fmcg giant was “proud to have teamed up with leading experts to bring this important innovation to our customers”.
“Our hope is that this prompts an industry-wide look at what more can be done to address the lack of soft plastics being recycled in the UK, and we can, as a collective, get better when it comes to developing new packaging solutions that are both good for our consumers and for our planet,” she said.
“After doing everything we can to remove and reduce plastic, we want to develop circular recycling solutions like this so the materials we use stay in our packaging and out of the environment,” added Tesco head of packaging James Bull.
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