Sainsbury’s swaps plastic for fiber across fish and chicken packaging range

13 Jun 2024 --- Sainsbury’s is packaging its own-brand salmon filets and chicken products in cardboard-based trays, moving away from plastic to save an estimated 346 metric tons of waste annually. 

The UK retailer is also rolling out cardboard trays across its Taste the Difference food products range — projected to save 48 metric tons of plastic a year from its breaded fish filets alone — and Sainsbury’s breaded chicken lines, projected to save 300 metric tons of plastic yearly. 

The pulp cardboard trays from all salmon lines and cardboard trays across breaded chicken and fish are easily recyclable, helping customers to reduce their household waste by placing the packaging in curbside recycling at home.

The new packaging will be rolling out throughout the summer across many seasonal chicken favorites, including Sainsbury’s finger food and BBQ range. The packaged range will offer breaded goujons, nuggets and schnitzels.

Sustainable fish and chicken packs
Claire Hughes, director for Product and Innovation at Sainsbury’s, says: “With salmon being one of our most popular fish, we made it a priority to reduce the plastic on the packaging of this much-loved product as we work toward our Plan for Better goals.”

“We are now the first retailer to make the move to have recycled pulp card trays across all our by Sainsbury’s and Taste the Difference salmon products, enabling a whopping 70% plastic reduction,” she says. 

“Together with changes to our breaded fish and chicken packaging, we are set to save 694 metric tons of plastic a year — a significant step toward our plastic reduction goals.”

Sainsbury’s recently launched its “Good to Know” logo to help customers find products that are more sustainable, including those with reduced plastic packaging. 

The new logo is aimed to help customers understand the retailer’s work around sustainability and its work toward its Plan for Better ambitions. Customers will be able to find the “Good to Know” logo on the latest packaging across Sainsbury’s salmon products.

Relatedly, Sainsbury’s recently swapped plastic punnets for cardboard for all its own brand mushrooms.

Edited by Natalie Schwertheim