Campaigns being waged against food packaging by national daily newspapers, particularly those focusing on fresh produce, have been slammed by the Packaging Federation as “headline grabbing”.
Chief culprits The Daily Mail and The Independent have between them poured scorn on four-packs of pears and Pink Lady apples, shrink-wrapped parsnips and broccoli, among other lines.
The federation is calling on retailers to do more to educate their customers about the need for packaging. “What is being forgotten is that packaging protects produce and enhances shelf life,” said Dick Searle, chief executive of the Packaging Federation. “I believe retailers are failing their customers by not educating them on this issue. The retailers, as they are today, would not exist if it were not for packaging. I have written to all the major retailers about this offering to help them educate their customers, but so far have only heard back from two.”
Sainsbury’s was criticised for a mark up of 37 per cent on a four-pack of Pink Lady apples in one report. A spokesperson for the chain said: “We are actively reducing our packaging by more than five per cent each year. We’re working with our suppliers to use greener forms of packaging such as compostable or recycled materials.”
Searle, however, claims such remarks are “disingenuous”, adding: “The supermarkets decide how a product is packed, it’s not the grower and it’s not the packaging industry. We are a service industry and merely come up with solutions.”
Terry Robins, former head of packaging at Sainsbury’s and now a director of the Institute of Packaging, believes food waste and landfill issues are far more serious, yet largely overlooked by campaigners. “[They are] 10 times more of a problem than packaging waste,” said Robins. “Food waste going into landfill putrifies and then produces methane, which is a far more harmful greenhouse gas. In fact, it is packaging that stops food waste.”
Tesco agrees. Trevor Datson, media manager and environment spokesman, told FPJ: “Packaging drastically reduces the amount of food waste that goes to landfill. Some experts have suggested that 20 per cent of food is wasted in the supply chain in developing countries, as opposed to about 0.5 per cent in Tesco.
“This isn’t to say that we can’t reduce the amount of packaging used. We can, and we have pledged to reduce packaging across all of our lines and branded lines by 25 per cent by weight by 2010. This is a huge undertaking of course. In any case, we’d agree with the Packaging Federation that packaging is often misunderstood. There hasn’t, in the past, been the same level of interest among the media, so perhaps there’s some education work to be done.”
The Packaging Federation has given the supermarkets until today to respond and is attempting to get a debate on the subject in the House of Commons. It is also engaging with the government’s Waste and Resources Action Programme to try and enhance consumer understanding of the real packaging issues.
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