The leading snacks business saved 142 tonnes of plastic across heritage brands Skips, Nik Naks and Space Raiders, freeing up space on retailers’ shelves and resulting in 644 fewer lorry journeys.

Additional packaging modifications also saw plastic reductions across McCoy’s, Hula Hoops and Butterkist, as well as KP Snacks market leading PMP range.

Meanwhile, the company also unveiled new modernised packaging for its iconic Hula Hoops brand, which hit the impressive £150m milestone earlier this year.

Rolling out from December, the new Hula Hoops packaging features vibrant colours, sharp graphics and bold patterns, enhancing the brand’s appeal to a wider audience. The eye-catching design and colours look to engage and disrupt shoppers, hinting at bold and tasty flavours that can be found within each pack.

As a well-loved and recognisable brand, the packaging refresh will build on Hula Hoops’ iconic look by bringing the entire range under a master-brand design, clearly communicating its sub-ranges and making it easier for consumers to navigate in store.

John McDougall, Brand Manager at KP Snacks, said: “Hula Hoops is an iconic brand and continues to be a dominant player in the CSN category, having recently surpassed the £150m RSV milestone. We are delighted to be reinvigorating the brand with an exciting packaging update across the entire range to continue driving its strong position.”

The move towards reducing packaging follows a 77 tonne packaging reduction in 2020 across Hula Hoops, Tyrrells, and popchips, the introduction of a KP Nuts’ fully recyclable Christmas nut caddy and a 100% recyclable KP Peanut Butter jar.

KP Snacks is also taking steps towards closing the loop on its packaging materials. It recently joined the Flexible Plastic Fund, a cross-industry collaboration managed by Ecosurety that is working towards a long term vision of a circular economy for flexible plastics. In collaboration with manufacturers, retailers and recyclers, the Fund will help to drive the development of UK infrastructure for flexible plastic recycling through collaboration and by providing financial incentives for recyclers.

KP Snacks has also partnered with TerraCycle® to support the recycling of bagged nuts, popcorn, crisps and pretzels packets nationwide.  With locations around the UK, consumers can drop off their used KP Snacks packs for recycling. Through the TerraCycle® partnership, 13m snack packs have been recycled so far.

Nicola Robinson, Head of Sustainability at KP Snacks said: “We’re committed to lessening the environmental impact of our activities and this investment in reducing plastic across our portfolio is just the first step in this process.

“While reducing plastic in our supply chain is a key element of our approach, we also recognise our responsibility to help develop recycling solutions over the long term so that ultimately, we can turn our crisp packets back into new crisp packets. Achieving this will require deep collaboration across the value chain, which is why we’re proud to be a member of the Flexible Plastics Fund, as well as partnering with TerraCycle® to help support infrastructure development within the UK.”

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The bananas, which were previously packaged in plastic bags, can now be found in simple paper bands made from white Kraft paper which consists entirely of primary fibres.

The new packaging bands have been introduced as part of the store’s commitment to reducing plastic packaging and will see a significant reduction of single use plastic across all 223 Supervalu stores, diverting a massive 5.61 tonnes of plastic from landfill annually.

While the organic own-brand range of bananas moved to plastic-free packaging two years ago, this move will result in a substantial reduction of plastic packaging in the fruit and veg aisle as 3,375,776 (3.3m) own-brand bananas are sold in SuperValu stores each year. The new bands are 100% recyclable and can be disposed of in the household green bin.

Along with own-brand bananas, SuperValu have introduced sustainable packaging changes to Signature Taste Potatoes and own-brand Organic Carrots. Irish grown SuperValu Signature Tastes Maris Piper Potatoes and Rooster Potatoes now come in 100% recyclable paper bags which along with the banana paper bands can go straight into the green bin. This change will replace 3.96 tonnes of plastic annually with a more sustainable solution.

Compostable bags

Other sustainable changes on the fruit and veg aisle include the introduction of compostable bags to SuperValu Organic Irish carrots. They now come in a compostable bag that can be disposed of in household brown bins, diverting almost 6 tonnes of plastic annually from landfill.

SuperValu’s sustainable packaging strategy is to make 100% of its Own Brand and fresh fruit and vegetable packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025. Small changes are being made consistently to packaging in order to give customers the chance to shop more sustainably during every shop and in turn help SuperValu build more sustainable communities.

Ian Allen, Managing Director, SuperValu, said: “Reducing single-use plastic in all our SuperValu stores remains a priority for us and we are delighted to introduce new sustainable packaging across a number of our produce ranges.

“The removal of plastic packaging on some of our most popular produce products; Own-brand Bananas, Signature Taste Potatoes,and Organic Carrots, is a massive step closer towards our goal of 100% sustainable packaging by 2025. The changes to these three product lines will remove over 15 tonnes from circulation, a positive move that impacts every community we operate in around Ireland.”

SuperValu will reduce its carbon footprint in Ireland by 70 per cent by 2025 and in addition to moving to sustainable packaging SuperValu is committed to operating all facilities with 100 percent green electricity and to sending no recoverable waste to landfill. Any food surplus in stores is sent to re-distribution charities so food waste is minimised as well as helping to alleviate food poverty.

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