Premier Foods - Case study: Reducing packaging

Premier Foods was one of the first major food manufacturing brands to sign up to the Courtauld Commitment.

In early 2009, a Premier Foods team was established in order to develop a specific plastic packaging rationalisation programme. This approach will be rolled out to all the company's packaging workstreams including glass, metal, cardboard and paper in order to deliver a coordinated packaging activity plan.

The company also worked in close partnership with its glass container suppliers on rationalisation and re-specification projects, which have delivered a weight saving of 732 metric tonnes (mt) based on an annual usage volume of 80,000 mt, the equivalent of a 0.92% weight saving.

Next year, Premier Foods have plans in place to achieve a further 2,620 mt weight reduction, a 3.28% weight saving.

The company is committed to supporting the UK glass packaging industry in the development of sustainable glass food container technologies. It believes that for packaging to be truly sustainable it must be sourced responsibly, designed to be effective and safe throughout its' life cycle, and be efficiently recycled to provide a valuable resource for future generations.

Premier Foods has decided to adopt the generic suite of on-pack recycling symbols developed by WRAP. This decision was taken, on all its brands, to ensure that consumers are equipped with the key information to help them recycle more packaging, more often. The company intends to apply these recycling symbols on a rolling programme throughout 2009/10.

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