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Easter Egg Packaging

plastic-free easter egg

In the UK alone, €250 million is spent on chocolate Easter Eggs in a year. While most of these eggs are packaged in cartons which is a sustainable form of packaging, there is still considerable debate about the waste created by Easter Egg packaging. This article is a summary of 3 articles on this topic.

Procarton Easter Egg Packaging Survey

The European Association of Carton and Cartonboard manufacturers, (Procarton) undertook a survey to ask consumers what they thought about the Easter Eggs packaging.

2,030 people were surveyed in the Procarton survey.

91% said they’d prefer their Easter Eggs to be packaged in cartonboard rather than plastic.
Overall 61% of respondents said they’d be willing to pay a bit extra for their eggs if they were packed in more environmentally-friendly packaging. In the 19-29 years old age category, 75% of respondents were prepared to pay more for environmentally-friendly packaging.

Over 50% of those that expressed an opinion said that plastic packaging debate had influenced their choice of Easter Egg.

45% of all UK consumers think Easter Egg packaging has become more environmentally sound in the last few years.

Future London – The Plastic Free Project

The UK Evening Standard newspaper has teamed up with Bee Midtown to create the Future London – The Plastic Free Project. (Bee Midtown is an organisation that aims to bring businesses in midtown London together to drive sustainable, commercial and social growth.) As part of this project, the Evening Standard publishes articles relating to the drive towards a plastic-free environment.

One such article was a recent article on the topic of environmentally- friendly Easter Eggs. The article was entitled “Plastic-free Easter Eggs UK: Best ethical chocolate eggs for an eco-friendly Easter 2019”

It quotes Friends of the Earth campaigner, Julian Kirby who said:

“With huge public concern about the impact of plastic pollution on our environment and wildlife, it’s astonishing that so many Easter eggs still use unnecessary plastic packaging. We need to rapidly phase-out all but the safest and most essential plastics – Easter Egg firms should play their part by pledging to make sure all their eggs use plastic-free packaging.”

It goes on to review and rate 10 different types of Easter Eggs in terms of how eco-friendly they are and how they rate in terms of taste and value. The Easter Egg that was rated the best was Divine Chocolate Gourmet Popcorn Egg. This egg is completely plastic-free and is completely Fairtrade, meaning that the farmers who produced the cocoa, vanilla and sugar used in the egg are being paid a proper wage. The box containing the egg is made from cartonboard which is a sustainable resource. The beautiful design of this triangular, window carton makes this egg a winner across the board.

Divine easter egg carton

You can read the full article here.

Tesco UK Trial Packaging-free Fruit and Veg

A recent article on sharecast.com reported that Tesco is running a trial in 2 stores (Swindon and Watford, UK ) where they will remove all packaging from 45 fruit and veg products and instead sell them loose. These products include apples, onions, mushrooms, peppers, bananas and avocados. This is part of Tesco’s plan to stop using hard-to-recycle plastic packaging by 2019 and making all its plastic wrapping fully recyclable by 2025. Sarah Bradbury, director of quality, stated that they hope this trial will be popular with customers and that they will closely monitor the results of the trial, including if there is any effect on food waste.

This move by a large retailer such as Tesco is further evidence of the groundswell of support for the elimination of single-use plastics.

You can read the full article here.

Sustainable Packaging from Dollard Packaging

At Dollard Packaging, we can help you find ways to make your carton more sustainable through the use of our sustainable boards, our plant-based, biodegradable window patch and sustainable finishes. Contact us on 01-847 0044

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