Food Packaging & Hardware
Find out more about our approach to packaging and hardware
Packaging | Materials for the containment, protection, handling, delivery and preservation of products. Most packaging will typically be discarded, although it can have an after-use. We currently handle around 88,000 tonnes of packaging material each year – a third of which is glass. We also use wood-derived materials such as paper and card, metal, and plastics like PET, PE, and PP.. |
Hardware | Items with an intended or perceived after-use or that provide added value to a product. For example, containers for flowers and plants such as ceramics, baskets, and vases, as well as toys and gift items such as cheese knives and boards. Ceramics, metal, paper and board and glass make up the majority of materials used by volume. |
Ensuring the safety and integrity of raw materials
Reducing the overall impact of packaging and hardware
Our ultimate goal at M&S is to achieve a circular economy - where we use less plastic and any we do use, gets reused or recycled. We also want to support our customers to do their bit, so we’re finding new solutions to make it easier for them to reduce, reuse and recycle more too.
Since 2018 we have removed 2,000 tonnes of plastic packaging by finding alternatives like card and foil.
We are using learnings from trials, such as our removal of plastic packaging from fruit and vegetables at our Tolworth store, to better understand how we can reduce packaging without increasing food waste.
We have completely eliminated black plastic packaging from our food production lines because it’s hard to recycle – part of our goal that all plastic packaging will be widely recyclable by 2022.
The take-back scheme for hard to recycle plastic was launched in 2019 and we are turning collected plastic into new playground equipment.
Ensuring our packaging is right for our consumers
Visitors to M&S Cafés will find we serve 99% of hot drinks in reusable china and we encourage customers to bring their own reusable cup by offering a 25p discount, and we've extended this this to our food-to-go Market Place counters to incentivise customers to bring in their own reusable containers. Earlier this year, we started trialling refillable cupboard essentials such as pasta, rice and cereals at our Hedge End renewal format store.
In clothing, we’ve reused and recycled over one billion plastic hangers in the last 12 years by asking customers to leave them at our till points or to bring them back to our stores - even if they’re broken.