Iceland offers a plastic free Christmas and doubles reduced plastic range

Iceland is offering a Christmas dinner with many more products that are plastic free or with reduced plastic packaging this year – meaning customers can enjoy a greater choice of delicious festive dishes, knowing they are helping the planet at the same time.

Last year, Iceland was the first UK supermarket to offer all three courses in either plastic free or reduced plastic packaging, as part of its global-first commitment to remove plastic from all own label packaging by the end of 2023.

This year, Iceland has continued to redevelop the packaging for a number of products to significantly reduce or remove plastic packaging on some of its Christmas favourites, including the first plastic free Christmas cake from a UK supermarket.

The frozen food retailer has increased the number of entirely plastic free products it sells to 23, including a selection of party food favourites, new products such as No Meat No Bull Wellington, and a large selection of delicious desserts such as Iceland Luxury Honeycomb Mountain and Iceland Top Iced Christmas Cake.

Iceland has also doubled the amount of reduced plastic Christmas products on offer for 2020. There are 16 products with significantly reduced plastic, including Christmas classics such as Iceland Luxury British Easy Carve Extra Tasty Turkey Crown, Iceland Boneless Perfect Turkey Crown wrapped in Bacon and Iceland Bacon Wrapped Goose with Cranberry & Apple Stuffing, together with desserts such as Iceland Extremely Chocolaty Gateau and Iceland Caramel Swirl Ice Cream. On average, the packaging of these 16 products contains only 3% plastic by weight.

Iceland Managing Director Richard Walker said: “We’re delighted with what we’ve achieved this year – doubling the number of products in reduced plastic packaging in our Christmas range. Finding alternatives is complex and requires true innovation, and it’s testament to the dedication and tenacity of the Iceland team and its suppliers that we are making real progress.

“Around Christmas so many more tonnes of plastic go to landfill so we’re very proud to play our part in helping to combat this this and providing a solution for customers to reduce their plastic footprint, which they’ve told us they’re very keen to do.”

Iceland continues to develop technologies and innovations with new and existing food and packaging suppliers across its supply chain; the result being that between January 2018 and December 2019, Iceland had already cut out some 3,794 tonnes of plastic (29%) from the 13,000 tonnes of plastic the business was previously using. Iceland is due to release its next Annual Plastic Report during spring 2021, with further reductions in its plastic use expected to be announced.