Supermarket giant Tesco today pledged to reduce by a quarter the amount of packaging used in both branded and own-label products within the next three years.

As it reported profits of £2.5 billion and a sales growth of 9% made in the year up to February 24, the nation's largest supermarket chain announced a package of measures to tackle its environmental impact.

Tesco, which accounts for just over 30% of the UK food market alone, also promised to label its products to show whether their packaging can be recycled or re-used.

Sir Terry Leahy, Tesco chief executive, said: "We have committed today to reduce the amount of packaging on both branded and Tesco own label products by 25% by 2010.

"We will also label all our packaging according to whether it can be re-used, recycled or composted – and if it cannot, we will label that too. The first labelled products will be on our shelves by 2008," he promised.

Welcomed

The move to cut packaging usage – and therefore the amount of packaging waste ending up in shoppers' bins – was welcomed today by the government's recycling delivery body, WRAP, which is working with Britain's retailers to cut packaging waste.

Dr Liz Goodwin, chief executive of the Waste and Resources Action Programme, said:"We are extremely encouraged to see leading retail names making a commitment to reducing the environmental impact of packaging. Along with the other major grocery retailers, Tesco was one of the original signatories to the Courtauld Commitment, agreeing to work with WRAP to achieve an overall reduction in packaging waste by 2010.

"These are ambitious targets from Tesco but they are just the type of challenging action that WRAP’s Courtauld Commitment was designed to achieve. We will be pleased to continue to work with Tesco and their suppliers as they develop their plans to deliver these changes," Dr Goodwin added.

Today's packaging pledge by Tesco came exactly a year after the supermarket giant made recycling commitments to soften news about its growing multi-billion pound profits (see letsrecycle.com story).

Last August saw the company launching a campaign to reduce the amount of plastic carrier bags given out to shoppers, offering loyalty card points to customers using their own bags for their shopping (see letsrecycle.com story).

Sir Terry said today the loyalty card scheme was working well, saving the use of millions of carrier bags.

He said: "Our Green Clubcard scheme – rewarding customers with extra Clubcard points for environmentally friendly behaviour – is helping us to meet our target of reducing carrier bags by 25% by 2008. Over 400 million bags have already been saved since the scheme launched in August."

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