Faerch drives back of store collection programme

Across the global food packaging industry, designing for circularity has become key to future-proofing food packaging. Faerch is therefore launching an industry first, closed loop recycling programme, in collaboration with UK-retailer Tesco, called Back of Store by Faerch.

The initiative will see Tesco back of store rigid trays collected, recycled and turned back into primary food contact trays or pots. It is a prime example of the circular economy in action and demonstrates a collaboration towards achieving a true closed loop within food packaging. Tesco will be diverting 2,000 tonnes of retail-ready packaging tray waste back into food packaging applications, using Eurokey’s polymer sorting facility and Faerch’s tray recycling facility in the Netherlands, with the material used to make new food trays across Faerch’s production sites.  

Introducing initiatives such as this will support the growth of the recycling infrastructure within the UK and for local recycling. 

There is a heavy reliance on the use of PET bottles in the production of PET trays. As companies respond to customer expectations and prepare for the UK Plastic Packaging Tax, the demand for recycled bottle flake will increase. Plastic pots, tubs and tray collection rates vs bottles is relatively poor and, as a result, the material is lost from the packaging supply chain.  

Faerch, with its vertically integrated capabilities, has the only technology that can recycle trays back into trays (Tray 2 Tray by Faerch). The collaboration with Tesco ensures that high-quality food grade PET is kept within the primary and secondary food packaging supply chain, while reducing the dependency on bottle flake.

Spencer Johnston, CEO of Faerch UK, Ireland and France, said: “We are committed to accelerating our efforts to reduce environmental impact especially on CO2, and we are using our position and resources actively to drive change at scale. As the world’s only integrated tray recycler, we have the capability, capacity, and expertise to support the industry’s transition towards a circular economy for primary food packaging. The journey has just begun and we look forward to the collaboration with Tesco in bringing this concept to market.”