London, United Kingdom — Nestle UK will make its Christmas variety packs fully recyclable this year by eliminating plastic trays and replacing them with paper card trays.
The transition is expected to reduce the weight of medium variety boxes by 17 percent, reduce the weight of large boxes by 20 percent and reduce overall packaging by 200 tonnes compared to 2007. Nestle plans to make about 2.5 million Christmas variety boxes this year.
This is the second year that the company has trimmed its Christmas packaging. Last year it reduced the variety box weight by 40 percent, but with this year's switch from plastic to paper trays, Nestle also had to completely redesign its boxes.
The packaging for the variety packs will be manufactured by a new Nestle packing facility that recently opened up next to the Nestle factory in York. The facility, which will be managed by IPS First and is located by one of Nestle's main distribution centers, will provide co-packing services for all of Nestle's UK business.
Nestle previously worked with co-packers around the U.K., and the switch to a centralized co-packer will cut the company's transportation needs by about 300,000 miles a year.