The supermarket chain has announced that it will offset its plastic footprint in a bid to become plastic-free across its own label packaging.

Iceland Foods announced it has partnered with Seven Clean Seas, an organisation headquartered in Singapore that runs ocean clean-up projects in Indonesia and Thailand, to design a global waste plastic recovery programme.

According to a statement by the company, the new programme will fund and establish community and municipal plastic waste collection projects and the environmental interception of nature-bound plastics in developing countries with high waste leakage. The supermarket plans to recycle the recovered plastics, where possible.

“We need to do more”

Richard Walker, Iceland’s managing director, said: “The UN Global Assessment of Marine Litter and Plastic Pollution is stark – plastic pollution is out of control and a major threat ecologically, to our climate and to human health.”

He added: “We are committed on our journey to become plastic-free across our own label range, but we need to do more than that and we need to do it immediately.

“We all know that, in the long term, the industry cannot recycle or offset its way out of the plastic crisis and, while we remain firmly fixed on plastic reduction, this is another important milestone in our journey to becoming plastic-free. I would ask our other supermarkets to urgently consider becoming plastic neutral as they too look to turn down the tap on plastic production altogether.”

As part of his statement, Walker added that the company would pledge to become plastic-free across its own brand range by 2023. According to data published by Iceland Foods, the company has seen a 29% reduction in own label plastic packaging since 2017.

Walker said: “Whilst we may not achieve our target by the end of 2023, due to setbacks caused by the pandemic and lack of commercially viable innovation, we remain focused on our target and will not stop until we have delivered what we set out to.”