Innovative Circular Grocery Start-up weekly.shop Receives Investment From Low Carbon Innovation Fund 2 And Turquoise Capital.

weekly.shop (https://www.weekly.shop), the innovative grocery start-up which aims at eliminating throwaway packaging from grocery shopping has secured investment from the Low carbon Innovation Fund (LCIF2) and Turquoise Capital, bringing their total funding to date to over £350k.

The investment comes alongside angels, including key early and senior individuals from the likes of graze.com, Harry’s and Hello Fresh. weekly.shop are also current recipients of a UK Research and Innovation grant to fight plastic waste.

LCIF2 supports innovative businesses dedicated to reducing carbon emissions and minimising environmental impact. Turquoise, the fund manager for LCIF2, shares this commitment to a greener future, specialising in sustainability-focused ventures. On this occasion they have further invested themselves alongside LCIF2.

weekly.shop’s service is the first of its kind in the UK and brings consumers a frictionless way to buy zero waste groceries. It’s a much needed solution, according to Greenpeace figures, nearly 40% of all plastic packaging waste comes from grocery shopping (that's a whopping 886,000 tonnes - 97bn items per year), and only 12% of it is ever recycled.

The weekly.shop pilot is soon to launch in London and this investment will help drive this key development phase as the first customers try the service (the waiting list already has over 750 eager shoppers on it).

A B-Corp Pending, the start-up was the brainchild of cofounders Paul Cooke and Mark Holland, who met when both were in the founding team at successful pet food start-up, tails.com (acquired by Nestle in 2018). As parents of younger children, they were motivated to help build a better future for their (and everybody else’s) kids.

"We’re delighted such experienced and aligned investors have shown belief and conviction in our vision for a new type of grocery shopping. This investment from LCIF2 and Turquoise Capital will help us bring that vision to life" said Cooke.

Holland added, “We’re working to bring about system change and to have large scale impact, having investors who also want to have this kind of impact is very important to us.”

Kevin Murphy, director at Turquoise, commented: “weekly.shop provides a service which enables customers to buy and consume their weekly shop with no packaging waste. We are delighted to make this investment as it fits very well in the investment strategy of LCIF2 into technologies and services helping to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs) as there are huge savings to be made by avoiding throwaway packaging on food deliveries.”

Tesco has 425 million reasons for customers to recycle

Customers shopping at Tesco are going to soon see changes across its own brand milk, as it the works with its milk dairies to make milk bottles even easier to recycle. 

By removing coloured plastic and changing blue, red and green milk caps to a clear alternative, on some 425 million bottles of milk annually, Tesco is improving the quality of recovered material from household waste and enabling the cap to be recycled back into new milk bottles. Customers are encouraged to squash or crush empty bottles, replacing the original lid before recycling to ensure it's not lost or discarded. 

Coloured plastic currently has to be processed separately from clear packaging, so this simple, yet effective change, means every year 3,900 extra tonnes of recycled plastic will be able to go back into making new milk bottles, a process which can be repeated each and every time a customer recycles it. 

The move will be seen in all Tesco stores, across 4 pint, 2 pint and 1 pint plastic milk bottles. However, different types of milk, whole, semi-skimmed or skimmed, will still be easy for staff and shoppers of identify, thanks to coloured labels around the main bottle.

James Waddy, who is Category Director for Dairy at Tesco, said: “Ensuring our packaging is as sustainable as possible is very important to us, and customer feedback on our trials of these new clear milk caps was overwhelmingly positive. Of course, we'll continue to look for ways to improve the packaging of all of our products, thus helping to make it even easier for customers to recycle at home.”

Tesco follows its 4Rs strategy when it comes to plastic and packaging, aiming to remove plastic where possible, reduce where it can't, reuse more and recycle what is left. 

Earlier this month, Tesco announced a trial of fresh mince ‘pillow packs’, which use 70% less plastic and are fully recyclable at in-store soft plastic collection points.                                           

To date, Tesco has removed around 2.2 billion pieces of plastic from its UK business, including: 

200+ million bags from Tesco.com deliveries

100+ million extra lids from products such as wipes, creams, yogurts and desserts

33 million pieces of plastic from bakery bread and doughnuts 

Incidentally here is the link to the story about the fresh mince trial that we carried a few weeks ago:

https://thatsfoodanddrink.blogspot.com/2023/08/tesco-unveils-fresh-mince-pillow-packs.html

Green first for Morrisons as it becomes first UK supermarket to introduce coffee pod recycling points

There's some exciting news for ecologically-minded shoppers as Morrisons is becoming the first UK supermarket to introduce coffee pod recycling points at its stores.

The return bins from coffee pod recycling scheme ‘Podback’ is launching in 29 stores this month. 

Used aluminium and plastic pods will be turned into new products including drinks cans, plastic crates and garden furniture.

The move which is being trialled in 29 stores is in partnership with Podback, the specialist pod recycling service. 

In an effort to make coffee pod recycling even easier and more convenient, Morrisons is trialling a new drop-off service which allows customers to collect their Podback recycling bags, fill them up with their used pods, and recycle in a dedicated bin which will be sited at the front of the store.

Last year, Morrisons announced it was the first supermarket to support Podback and remains the only one to provide free coffee pod recycling bags for its customers to collect in all of its stores. The recycling bags can be filled at home and be taken to one of 6,500 Yodel drop off points around the UK with all postage covered by Podback. 

Over the last year, it's estimated 800 million coffee pods were bought in the UK, making it even more important than ever for customers to have an easier route to recycle their pods.  

Morrisons is also set to become a dedicated Podback member, meaning Morrisons own-brand pods can all be recycled through the scheme, besides 24 other pod brands across the coffee sector. 

Customers need to use correctly colour coded bags, there's one for aluminium pods and one for plastic pods. This is because pods are separated and sent to different recycling processing plants in the UK.

Through Podback, used aluminium pods are turned back into aluminium ingots for new products, like beverage cans, and the used plastic coffee pods are turned into other plastic items,  including building products and plastic crates. And there's more! The used coffee grounds go through a special anaerobic digestion process, which makes useful biogas and soil improver.

Natasha Cook, who is the Sustainable Packaging and Plastics Manager at Morrisons, said: “We’re excited to be launching this trial with Podback as we look to make it even easier for our customers who want to brew fresh coffee at home to recycle their used coffee pods. Now they can grab a Podback bag, fill it at home and just drop it off on their next store trip.”  

Rick Hindley, the Executive Director at Podback, said: “Morrisons was the first supermarket to become a supporter of Podback and we’re thrilled that they’re now set to become a member; enabling their own brand pods to be recycled through the service and working with us to further improve access to coffee pod recycling by trialling a new drop-off system. 

"This is another exciting step forward towards providing consumers with easy and convenient ways to recycle their used coffee pods. We also welcome and encourage other retailers to join Podback and make it even easier for consumers to recycle pods in the future.”

Morrisons stores across the UK currently offer soft plastic, battery and inkjet recycling facilities. Since 2017 Morrisons has reduced its own brand plastic packaging in its 499 stores by over 10,000 tonnes a year.

The following Morrisons stores now offer Podback drop off points with more stores to follow:

Aldershot

Letchworth

Aylesbury

Melton Mowbray

Banbury

Milton Keynes

Basingstoke

Northampton – Kettering Road

Bedford

Northampton – Victoria Promenade

Bracknell

Reading

Carterton

St Albans

Corby

Shefford

Farnborough

Watford

Fleet

Wellingborough

High Wycombe

Welwyn Garden City

Hoddersdon

Weybridge

Houghton Regis

Woking

Kettering

Wokingham

Leighton Buzzard

Bags better for everyone! Tesco and Morrisons welcome the Universal Bag

Marking a massive milestone in the global rollout of the Universal Bag project, Tesco and Morrisons are the next two UK partners.

Designed by Anya Hindmarch and manufactured by the Solent Group, The Universal Bag is reportedly the next generation of reusable bag; a desirable, durable, reusable, 100% recycled and recyclable shopping bag that's designed for everyone, to take everywhere, for just about everything or anything.

Working in collaboration with major global food retailers, the Universal Bag has the laudable aim of driving meaningful change across the entire industry. 

While use of single use plastic has reduced dramatically, with sales falling in the main supermarkets by 95% between 2021 to 2022, says lates official figures, the problem is far from solved. Nearly half a billion single use plastic bags were still sold between 2021 to 2022 and the ‘bag for life’ isn't th environmental solution we'd all hoped it would be.

However, since launching The Universal Bag project collaboratively over 150 tonnes of virgin plastic has been saved from landfill, the equivalent of over 12 London double decker buses.

The Tesco version, available from the end of July in 250 stores nationwide, will be available in their core brand colours of blue with red handles, while the Morrisons version, available from mid-September in 400 stores all over the country, will be in their core brand colours of yellow with green handles.

These versions of the Universal Bag are the seventh and eighth editions respectively and add to the growing global line up, following Asda, Co-op, Sainsburys, Selfridges Food Hall and Waitrose in the UK, City’SUPER in Hong Kong and National Azabu in Japan. More global partners will be announced later on this year.

Incidentally, Morrisons was the first UK supermarket to introduce paper ‘bags for life’ instead of plastic and has also committed to using 50% less plastic packaging in its own-brand products by 2025.

Working together with retailers with such impact, scale and ambition gives the opportunity to make meaningful changes and inspire long lasting shifts in consumer habits.

Both the Tesco and Morrisons versions will retail at £10 each.

The project, open to all food retailers worldwide, allows each partner to create their own exclusive version of the Universal Bag in keeping with their own brand requirements.

The Universal Bag is made from 100% recycled plastic and each step and material used in making the bag has been fully certified under the Global Recycling Scheme (GRS) making this a truly 100% recycled product.

Each Universal Bag is guaranteed to last for ten years having been extensively tested for durability.

The Universal Bag features an innovative, convenient freepost returns pocket built into a pocket inside the bag. You simply turn the bag into its built-in pocket which acts as a pre-addressed envelope and then post it through a letter box. It's then 100% recycled locally.

In addition to being practical the Universal Bag is designed to be durable, too. By creating a bag  customers feel excited to be seen with and are motivated to take care of, reuse is expected to increase, tackling one of the major issues surrounding shopping bags.

Anya Hindmarch, Founder and Creative Director, comments: “The Universal Bag project has saved over 150 tonnes of virgin plastic from landfill so far, the equivalent weight of over 12 London double decker buses. Plastic pollution remains a pressing environmental issue but working together with major global food retailers shows how the solution needs to collaborative.”

Rachel Eyre, Chief Customer and Marketing Officer, Morrisons, adds: “We’re really thrilled to partner with Anya Hindmarch on the Universal Bag project and support such an important, vital issue. We are committed to reducing our plastic use and we were the first supermarket to introduce paper ‘bags for life’. It’s an issue our customers and colleagues are extremely passionate about so we're very excited to see the Morrisons x Anya Hindmarch tote land in our stores and we will be proud to spot it out and about, too!”

Ashley Simons, the Solent CEO, opined: “Both Anya and Solent have a shared heritage in creating and producing market disrupting initiatives that help customers to lead healthier, more sustainable lives. We are delighted to have partnered with Anya and her team on the Universal Bag which further supports the reduction and need for single use plastics. The Universal Bag is a beautiful and high performing product that encourages customers to buy into reusability and sustainability.

"It’s not a bag you’d ever feel comfortable throwing in the bin. Given the durability of the bag, ideally, it will never need to be recycled but, if it does, we have made it easy for the customer to get it back into the recycling stream, a process we believe has never been done before. The Universal Bag is a true market first and another step change in our mission to end single use plastic bag usage for one and for all.”

Looks like it'll be a great way to take your food and drink shopping back home with you, or to take your picnic to the beach and then back home again!

Co-op serves-up new Brixworth, Northamptonshire, store

Co-op is launching a new, improved, larger store this week (Friday, 21 July) to serve the village of Brixworth in Northamptonshire.

The 5,000 sq ft convenience store, which supports 25 jobs in the locality, is in excess of double the size of its Hunters Way store which will relocate to the new Northampton Road site.

Opening times are between 7am-10pm daily (10am-4pm Sundays), the new store includes a free ATM to provide access to cash for people living in the community. There's also an in-store bakery, a Costa coffee dispenser and hot food options, too. The Post Office will also relocate (from the Hunters Way branch) to the brand-new location following the launch.

Brixworth’s new Co-op store will also be including an enhanced, improved range of fresh, healthy products; great meal ideas; everyday essentials; food-to-go; Fairtrade products, flowers, chilled beers and award winning wines; ready meals, pizzas and, a free-from range. Also vegan and plant-based products, including Co-op’s exclusive vegan range, GRO. (I'm not a vegan, but I love the Co-op GRO sandwiches!)

A funding boost is provided locally via Co-op’s Membership programme. Membership of Co-op unlocks extra value with personalised offers and, Member price benefits to help its Members save even more. 

Also, Co-op members are rewarded with 2p in every pound that they spend on Co-op branded products which is added to their own personal Membership account balance, with Co-op donating the same amount to local good causes and, community organisations - so, Members can make a difference locally simply by shopping at their local Co-op.

Community causes which are currently being supported by the Brixworth store are: Sunny Socks Nursery School; Brixworth Wombles, the community litter picking group and, Brixworth First Responders.

Steve Littlewood, Co-op Store Manager, said: “It's really very exciting to be launching Co-op’s newest store. Our aim is to operate at the heart of local life in our community and, we are really looking forward to welcoming Members and customers into their new and improved store. We've worked hard to develop the range, choice and added services to create a compelling offer to serve our community, but to do so conveniently.”

A soft plastic recycle unit is also available in store to enable the community to recycle ‘soft plastics’ including: crisp packets and bread bags, lids from ready meals and yogurt pots, biscuit wrappers and, pet food pouches, too. 

As a result, this means all Co-op’s own food packaging is100% recyclable through either local authority kerbside collections, or its in-store soft plastic recycling unit.

Co-op is one of the world’s largest consumer co-operatives, it is owned by Millions of UK consumers and alongside Food, it operates Funeralcare; Insurance and Legal Services.

More information about the benefits of Co-op Membership is available by visiting coop.co.uk/membership.

Recycling food containers and related items. Why is it so difficult?

We are all, by-and-large, better than ever before about recycling our household waste. But why is it so difficult to recycle many items, especially food-related items?

The following, in general, cannot, as yet, be recycled:-

Grease- or Oil-Soaked Cardboard. (Even vegetable oils)

Lids and caps from many bottles.

Ceramic or Oven-Safe Serving Pieces.

Styrofoam or Polystyrene Containers.

Plastic Utensils.

Plastic Bags and Plastic Wrap. (Although these can be recycled at some supermarkets, but not at home, for some reason.)

Waxed Paper and Cartons.

Bubble wrap, in some areas.

This BBC link explains in more detail. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220525-what-can-and-cant-be-recycled.

The problem is that in order to know what plastics can or cannot be recycled ( PETE/PET, HDPE, PVC, LDPE, PP, PS and other plastics) it seems you require a BSc degree in plastics technology and recycling.

Why can't the authorities just take all waste and then have trained workers sort them out and identify what can and cannot be recycled at a central recycling/waste depot? Too expensive? But if recycling and our environment is really as important as the government and local authorities and green pressure groups claim, surely it would be worth paying more money to address the issues of proper recycling?

As it is at our homes we have food recycling bins, green bins, bins for paper (separate bins for card in some areas) bins for plastics and glass and general recycling, containers for batteries, etc, all of which take up room in people's gardens, yards, patios, garages, pathways, etc.

So we can have up to six or seven different boxes, bags, bins for recycling at our properties.

The following site also has some useful information https://wrap.org.uk.

(Image courtesy Image by S K from Pixabay)

Aldi is switching to colourless, greener, milktops in all its 990 UK stores

Following last year's successful trial, Aldi, the UK’s fourth largest supermarket, is introducing the easier to recycle caps on all its milk lines in a bid to further boost the recyclability of the bottles.

Partnering with several suppliers, the new milk caps have started to appear in stores this week onward.

The roll out will mean a further 200 tonnes of High-Density Polythene (rHDPE) in the bottle tops can be reused to create new milk bottles.  

Customers will still be able to distinguish the milk type via the labels, which will remain red, green or blue depending on the fat content of the milk it contains.

Luke Emery, Aldi's Plastics and Packaging Director said: “At Aldi we are constantly reviewing ways to become a more sustainable supermarket and cut down on single-use plastic. That means working closely with all our suppliers to find solutions that will make a real difference.

“Improving the recyclability of packaging on an everyday product like milk has been well received by our customers, who are increasingly aware of products being environmentally friendly.”

Lidl is extending Prevented Ocean Plastic™ to its water bottle packaging

From next month, July, Lidl's San Celestino Italian sparkling mineral water bottles will incorporate the ocean bound plastic.

The permanent change will prevent the equivalent of nearly 4 million plastic water bottles from entering the ocean annually.

Also Lidl's changing all milk caps from coloured to clear, further boosting their recyclability.

Lidl GB has announced it will be incorporating Prevented Ocean Plastic™ into its water bottle and is the first UK supermarket to make this change.

Appearing in store throughout July, Lidl’s 1 litre San Celestino Italian Sparkling Mineral Water bottles will contain a minimum of 30% Prevented Ocean Plastic™,  plastic which would otherwise have ended up in the ocean.

With 12 million bottles of the everyday item sold annually, this initiative is expected to save nearly 100 tonnes of plastic from entering our oceans annually, per year, equivalent to almost 4 million plastic water bottles.

The move builds on Aldi's previous efforts in being green. Lidl has been leading the way since 2020, when it became the first UK supermarket to introduce food packaging using Prevented Ocean Plastic™. 

Since then, it's been rolled out across a range of Lidl’s own-brand fresh fish, breaded poultry, sausage and fresh fruit products, meaning Aldi's already prevented the equivalent of in excess of 15 million plastic water bottles from entering the ocean.

Doubling down on their commitments, Lidl is also taking steps to improve the recyclability of its plastic. Last year, the discounter transitioned its semi-skimmed fresh milk with supplier Müller over to clear caps from coloured.

Over the next two months, in partnership with both Müller and Cornish Farm, it's transitioning its entire milk range to clear caps.

The rollout of colourless milk caps this year will support industry wide retention of 4000 tonnes of bottle top material to be used again within the food sector.

Shyam Unarket, who is the Head of Responsible Sourcing and Ethical Trade at Lidl GB, said:  “Ocean plastic pollution is a pressing environmental concern, it is expected that by 2050 there could be more plastic in the ocean than fish. 

"As pioneers of integrating ocean bound plastic into our packaging in 2020, we have been consistently building and improving on our efforts since, and are proud to now extend Prevented Ocean Plastic™ into water bottles. Through this latest product development, we hope to inspire wider efforts across the industry.”

Prevented Ocean Plastic™ packaging, supplied and developed in conjunction with Bantam Materials, is made from discarded water bottles found in Southeast Asia within 30 miles of a coastline or major waterway that feeds into the ocean. This waste is then sorted and processed before being used in packaging. The entire process is fully traceable with a robust documented chain of accountability.

https://www.aldi.co.uk

Tesco launches collaborative ready meal tray-to-tray initiative with Faerch Group

In what's believed to be a first in the industry, Tesco has started to recycle used plastic food trays back into packaging - creating a fully circular packaging solution for its entire range of core chilled ready meals.

The change is in collaboration with leading packaging manufacturer Faerch and will see customer-recovered PET trays, which are collected via kerbside waste, recycled and converted back into food grade plastic trays.

Tesco’s ready meal trays already contain up to 75% of recycled content, mainly from cleaner and easier to recycle bottle flake plastic. Through the new Tray 2 Tray by Faerch™ programme, a minimum of 30% recycled tray content will be included in the new core chilled ready meals trays.

A phased rollout of the new trays will take place this month (April) across Tesco’s core own brand chilled ready meals. The collaboration will ensure high quality food-grade PET is kept within the supply chain, rather than being downcycled, and demonstrates PET packaging from trays can be fully recovered and recycled at an industrial scale.

Adele Kearns, Packaging Development Manager at Tesco, said: “We're absolutely determined to close the loop on our packaging, for it to be fully recyclable and contain recycled content wherever this is possible. 

"We remain committed to reducing our environmental impact, and helping our customers do the same, as we work together to protect our planet.”

Ruth Price, Strategic Sales Manager at Faerch UK, said: “We’re delighted to launch our Tray 2 Tray by Faerch™ programme with Tesco, an essential initiative that promotes circular food packaging in the economy, and we are committed to working with our customers to keep rigid food packaging in the economy and out of the environment. 

"Our collaboration with Tesco is the perfect example of how material from EU waste resources can be diverted into a valuable commodity. Moving forward, our intention is to not only increase the level of tray-to-tray content but to also start taking this from local UK feedstocks”.

Tesco also works alongside suppliers to drive change across products – eliminating all hard-to-recycle material from UK packaging in 2019 - and supports industry action including the UK Plastics Pact, which tackles the impact of plastic waste.

• Lines that have changed or will change over the coming weeks are:

o SPINACH & RICOTTA CANNELLONI 400G

o TOMATO & MOZZARELLA PENNE 400G

o SPAGHETTI & MEATBALL 400G

o TUNA BAKE 400G

o BEEF LASAGNE 400G

o VEGETABLE LASAGNE 400G

o SPAGHETTI BOLOGNESE 400G

o SPAGHETTI CARBONARA 400G

o HAM & MUSHROOM TAG 400G

o CHICKEN ARRAB 400G

o PEPPERONI PASTA BAKE 400G

o ITALIAN CHICKEN & BACON PASTA BAKE 400G

o MACARONI CHEESE 400G

o CHICKEN & CHORIZO PASTA 400G

o PESTO PASTA 400G

o LENTIL BAKE 400G

o ITALIAN CHICKEN & BACON PASTA BAKE 750G

o BEEF LASAGNE 750G

o MACARONI CHEESE 750g

o THREE CHEESE MELT 750G

o PEPPERONI PASTA 750G

o BEEF LASAGNE 1.5KG

o CHICKEN, TOMATO & MOZZARELLA 1.5KG

o CARBONARA PASTA BAKE 1.5KG

o BEEF LASAGNE 1.5KG

o CHICKEN, TOMATO & MOZZARELLA 1.5KG

o CARBONARA PASTA BAKE 1.5KG

You can learn about Faerch here https://www.faerch.com/en