The grocery sector has ended packaging growth in the UK despite a sharp increase in sales, the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) said.

Having worked with the UK’s top retailers and brands to achieve this target, the sector is now on track to cut food and packaging waste.

This success is the result of the Courtauld Commitment. This is a voluntary agreement between WRAP, Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), the Scottish and Welsh governments and the UK grocery sector to achieve significant reductions in household packaging and food waste. It was achieved by the grocery sector despite unanticipated challenges including 1.8% growth in the grocery sector and population growth of 0.5% per annum. It is the first step towards meeting the Courtauld Commitment’s ultimate target of decreasing the amount of packaging waste by 2010.

On 28 July WRAP hosted a summit of top retailers and brands at which Environment Minister Joan Ruddock gave the Government perspective.  WRAP revealed that signatories to the Courtauld Commitment had achieved the 2008 objective and were on target to meet the 2010 objectives on food and packaging waste. Representatives of 32 retailers and brands took part in this summit. The retailers represent 92% of the UK grocery supermarkets.

WRAP and the grocery sector discussed possible future action on food and packaging waste, building on the success of the existing agreement.

The Courtauld Commitment is due to run until 2010. The challenges important to the delivery of the Commitment are:

Increasing the number of grocery brands and manufacturers signed up

Demonstrating visible change to consumers

Delivering change throughout the supply chain

There has already been further progress on the first of these challenges with two new signatories attending the summit: Procter & Gamble and Weetabix.

There was discussion of possible ways forward on packaging and food waste after 2010, against the background of the recent report by the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit: Food Matters. Amongst the issues considered for any successor agreement to the Courtauld Commitment were:

How the carbon impacts of packaging might be measured

Considering extending the objectives to cover food waste and packaging at back of store and in the grocery supply chain

How to encourage increasing the amount of recycled content in pacpackaging and making the packaging itself easier to recycle

In addition, by April 2010, WRAP asked the retailers and brands to further support its Love Food Hate Waste Campaign to help achieve its objective of a 155,000 tonne reduction in household food waste. WRAP explained that the contribution by retailers and brands could help make a real impact on consumer behaviour in this area. Possible actions could include developing a wider range of portion sizes, providing more extensive storage advice and clarity on date labelling. However, WRAP was clear that this will form just one part of the solution in helping consumers reduce food waste.

WRAP CEO Liz Goodwin said:“WRAP is delighted that the grocery sector has responded positively to the challenge of tackling packaging and food waste. Their achievement in ending packaging growth is an impressive one, particularly against the backdrop of unexpectedly high grocery sales and population growth.

“WRAP, the retailers and brands are now looking at how to further reduce packaging and food waste in the future.  The ideas we are discussing include reaching out to new areas of retail – which could potentially have a great impact on waste reduction.

“WRAP also wants to thank consumer campaigners for helping to push the issue of packaging further up the agenda.” 

Joan Ruddock, Environment Minister, said: “Packaging is the most visual, intrusive and irritating part of household rubbish. People say they feel it’s out of their control and that they want something done about it.”

“WRAP, retailers and brands have made progress together and are coming up with increasingly innovative solutions, but we need to keep moving forward.”

“Food waste is one area where we can make a big difference.  For every tonne of food we can prevent being thrown away, we can save four and a half tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions and I would urge signatories to keep this in mind when considering ways in which to tackle this problem.”

“The Government will continue to support WRAP and welcomes plans to explore a move away from weight to CO2 as a better measure of the environmental cost of food waste and  packaging.”

Richard Lochhead, Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment said: “Excess packaging is a waste of resources and contributes to landfill. The Scottish Government is committed to reducing unnecessary packaging as we work towards meeting our target in Scotland of stopping growth in municipal waste by 2010.

“I am pleased to see progress in this area and will work closely with retailers and other UK countries to ensure that progress continues to be made”.

Jane Davidson, Welsh Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing said: "This is a promising start by the grocery sector and I look forward to working closely with the sector to ensure that further effort is applied to help us meet the very challenging targets set in the Wales Waste Strategy to reduce the amount of household waste produced.  We all have a collective responsibility to do the right thing and I am sure that the retail sector will continue to rise to the challenge, and provide the opportunities their customers are calling for." 

Responding to WRAP's announcement that the grocery sector has met the Courtauld Commitment target to end packaging growth, Melanie Leech, Food and Drink Federation Director General said: "It's great news that the industry has met the Courtauld target to halt packaging growth, and that we are now on track to cut food and packaging waste by 2010. As part of FDF's Five-fold Environmental Ambition we have been encouraging our members to make a significant contribution to WRAP's work on reducing the level of packaging reaching households, as well as seeking to send zero of our own food and packaging waste to landfill from 2015.

"As our joint survey with Defra demonstrates reducing waste is an area that our members are already taking seriously, having prevented over half a million tonnes of food waste being created in 2006 by sending food by-products for uses such as animal feed.

"We are delighted that two more of our member companies have decided to sign up to the Courtauld Commitment – Proctor and Gamble and Weetabix - and are encouraging others to do the same as part of our Environmental Ambition. Together with our member signatories FDF looks forward to continuing to work with WRAP both to deliver the 2010 objective as well as on possible options for moving forward beyond this.”