A Fully Recyclable Packaging Trial by Aldi

Aldi is on a mission. Since becoming carbon neutral in 2019, the supermarket has been pushing ever forward in the evolution of plastic packaging. 

Currently, the company are looking at all of their products to see how they can either remove the plastic or replace it with recyclable alternatives. They are on track to make all own-brand product packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2022, with the hope of doing the same with its branded packaging by 2025. 

Recyclable Sandwich Packaging 

As part of this overhaul, Aldi will be trialling a fully recycling packaging alternative for two of their sandwich products, in selected stores from September. 

The packaging has been developed alongside their supplier, Greencore and consists of a cardboard box, with paper lined film.  

During the design stage, it was important that the integrity of the product was maintained. Richard Groman, Aldi’s Plastic and Packaging Director has this to say; ‘“The new sandwich packaging maintains the shelf life of the products while allowing customers to easily recycle the packaging. Food to go is one of our most popular categories and we are confident this initiative will be well received by our customers.”    

If successful, the trial will lead to the replacement of all Aldi’s sandwich packaging with the new fully recyclable alternative.  

This has a potential saving of 23.8 million pieces of unrecyclable plastic per year, as well as 29.8 tonnes of single-use plastic.  

It will also be another step in Aldi’s aim to reduce all avoidable plastics from its supermarkets. In addition to its fully recyclable sandwich plastic packaging, the company are looking to remove single-use plastic from their own bran tea bags and outer packaging from tea products, by the end of 2021.  

Each development is helping Aldi towards meeting its pledge of halving the plastic packaging it uses by 2025.