Albert Heijn supermarket spurs plastics circular economy with recycled fruit salad trays

07 Mar 2022 --- Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn is supporting closed-loop plastic recycling from this month by reusing PET from household waste for new containers. The initiative will be rolled out to 550 g fresh fruit salads, which account for 550,000 trays annually.

Albert Heijn aims to use at least 50% recycled PET (rPET) and wants to use 20 million kg less packaging material by 2025, while making all house-brand packaging 100% recyclable in the same timeframe.

“The reprocessing of trays is far more complicated than the PET bottle, especially reprocessing it into a food-grade quality. There are only a few companies in the world that are capable of doing this, and it’s still in the growing phase,” Niels van Marle, senior sustainable packaging specialist at Kennisinstituut Duurzaam Verpakken (KIDV), tells PackagingInsights.

“When a big player like Albert Heijn is pushing this, it stimulates the market to develop the technology and helps to increase the quality of recycling. They create a demand that the value chain will recognize and the capacity for this kind of high-level recycling,” Van Marle elaborates.

On the circularity path
PET from household packaging waste is the most common type of plastic used as food packaging after recycling. Previously, PET food-grade recycling was only possible for returnable bottles. In the past, PET containers such as mushroom containers and meat dishes were recycled into non-recyclable colored plastic or lower-value uses, such as roadside posts or picnic tables. Albert Heijn fruit salad punnets will be the first product to be packaged in rPET.

“Together, we want to make better food accessible to everyone by encouraging a healthy lifestyle, but also by combating food and packaging waste. We have ambitious packaging targets. We are looking at whether we can use less plastic and are looking for possibilities for reuse,” says Henk van Harn, director of merchandising and sourcing at Albert Heijn.

While KIDV supports the move by Albert Heijn to recycle PET for reuse as containers, the institute believes it is only the first step toward an actual circular system.

“This [move] is just one step in the direction of circularity. It’s still a single use of plastic. You consume the product, dispose of the packaging, then it has to be collected and sorted. It also needs to be shredded and then heated before being recycled. It still uses a lot of energy,” explains Van Marle.

“You have 100% circularity when the application of packaging doesn’t have a negative impact on the environment by using energy, reprocessing and cleaning, but that’s very theoretical,” he says.

Recycling is the least desirable application in the “circularity” concept, Van Marle claims. Reusing products multiple times fits the circular model better, he says. 

“We are still far away from that. We need to go step-by-step. This is a good step. We need to develop new concepts to get closer to circularity,” he adds.

Bolstering recycling infrastructure
Albert Heijn’s transparent tray-to-tray packaging, developed in collaboration with plastic recycling company Umincorp and packaging producer Hordijk, consists of 40% rPET. At least half of this recycled content consists of household packaging waste.Albert Heijn is looking to replicate the relative success of PET bottle recycling.

According to the retailer, more than 9 million kg of packaging material has been saved by using no, less or different packaging material in the last four years. The advantage of recycling old PET containers is that more PET from the returnable bottle stream becomes available and less fossil-based plastic is needed. 

In addition, it gives plastic recycling a boost because more used food packaging is given a new lease of life as food packaging. It also increases the availability of rPET, which has been increasingly in demand.

Plastic food trays, including MAP (modified atmosphere packaging) trays, remain a popular choice for meat, fish, cheese and other food products. With the COVID-19 experience heightening consumer hygiene concerns, plastic trays offer supreme product protection.

Albert Heijn’s Sustainability Report 2021 shows that between 2018 and 2020, more than 7 million kg of packaging material have been saved. The new packaging of mincemeat contains 70% less plastic, saving 500,000 kg of plastic annually.

Meanwhile, the replacement of the plastic bucket of snack tomatoes and blueberries with a light plastic tray with a resealable top seal saves 210,000 kg of plastic annually.

By Inga de Jong