Tesco cuts multipack plastic for drinks

British supermarket giant Tesco is making drastic cutbacks to its plastic use, as part of a strategy to save 45 million pieces of plastic a year.  

The move will mean the brand ditches multipacks of its own label drinks, but the good news is that it will actually enable shoppers to gain more freedom of choice with their purchases. Individual cans will be sold at the same price per unit as a part of a multi-buy promotion, but instead of having to buy multiples of the same product, the ability to mix and match will be offered.

The multipacks of 4s were previously priced at £1, now the price is 50p a can or four for £1.  

The brand states that, initially, 12 million pieces of plastic a year will be saved from use on all own-brand canned fizzy drinks.   

An additional 33 million pieces of plastic will also be removed in the autumn, as plastic multipacks will be removed from kids’ lunchbox drinks, energy drinks, water and fruit juices. 

“Customers are focused on getting great value right now, but they still want to use less plastic,” Johnny Neville, Tesco Head of Packaging Development, said. “Not only is this move great news for the environment but it will also offer customers more choice and flexibility when it comes to fizzy drinks – at no extra cost. It could even work out much cheaper for customers who want a variety of drinks.”    

This is the latest in a series of actions against multipack plastic from Tesco; in January 2020, the supermarket saved 67 million pieces of plastic a year by removing multipack wraps from all of its tins. Moreover, in May 2021, it stopped selling beers and ciders in soft plastic multipack wraps, as part of a move which saved 50 million pieces of plastic a year. 

Tesco’s 4Rs packaging strategy aims to remove plastic where it can, reduce where it can’t, reuse more, and recycle what’s left. 

Since the launch of this strategy in August 2019, the UK supermarket has removed 1.7 billon pieces and further reduced packaging by more than 3,000 tonnes from its annual footprint.