UK retailer Waitrose & Partners has taken another step forward in its bid to reduce plastic from its shelves with the introduction of recyclable cardboard grape baskets which will replace traditional plastic baskets for its private brand Waitrose Duchy Organic and Waitrose Sable grapes. Waitrose & Partners is the first UK supermarket to sell grapes packaged this way.
The switch to recyclable cardboard will save an initial 12 tons of plastic a year, with this figure set to rise with more grapes expected to make the change later in the year.
The move to a cardboard basket for Waitrose Duchy Organic grapes is part of the Waitrose & Partners sustainable packaging pledges made to His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales to honor his 70th birthday in November 2018 and demonstrates the potential to move away from plastics whilst preserving the quality and freshness of the fruit.
, Waitrose & Partners said: ‘This packaging first for our Waitrose Duchy Organic and Waitrose 1 Sable grapes highlights our continued efforts to reduce unnecessary plastic packaging wherever we possibly can. The amount of plastic we will remove by switching from plastic punnets (baskets) to cardboard is significant and we hope to increase this figure further by moving more of our grapes into cardboard punnets (baskets) later in the year.’
