Nestlé aims to eliminate more than 3billion pieces of packaging with an overhaul of two of its biggest brands.
Quality Street is moving from twist-wrapped sweets to paper packaging, while KitKat has launched wrappers made with 80% recycled plastic that can be recycled at stores across the UK and in household recycling in Ireland.
The rollout of both began last month. Further boosting the Quality Street green credentials is that the new wrappers have a special vegetable-based coating for the paper, which does not hinder the recycling process. Nine of the 11 Quality Street sweets will move to paper-based packaging.
The Orange Crunch and the Green Triangle will remain in their simple foil wrappers as, traditionally, they have not had cellulose wrappers. The transition to paper, which is now under way, will take several months to complete. This means that for Christmas 2022, consumers found a mix of both the old and new wrappers in their Quality Street cartons, pouches, tubs, and tins. The sweets inside were unchanged.
Richard Watson, Business Executive Officer, Nestlé Confectionery, said: “Nestlé Confectionery is taking a leadership position on packaging sustainability as we work towards reducing our use of virgin plastic by one third and making all our packaging recyclable or reusable within the next three years.”