Aldi to remove plastic lids from own-label products

Aldi has announced it will remove all plastic lids on its own-label fresh cream and ready-to-drink coffee products, as part of its ongoing campaign to reduce single-use plastics.

Across England and Wales from March, the supermarket will stock these products without unnecessary plastic lids in over 780 stores.

This initiative will remove around 34 million pieces of single-use plastic from the market.

In addition, from the end of February, Aldi will trial the removal of plastic lids from its large Greek-style flavoured yogurt pots. If successful, this will be rolled out across all 500g yogurt pots, eliminating a further 34 million pieces of plastic.

These moves are the supermarket’s latest steps to scrap unnecessary plastic as it works towards reducing plastic packaging by 25% by the end of 2023.

Fritz Walleczek, Managing Director of Corporate Responsibility at Aldi, said: “We are committed to cutting the amount of plastic that Aldi and our customers use, particularly unnecessary, single-use plastic like secondary lids.

“Every step like this brings us closer to our target of reducing the amount of plastic we use in packaging by 25%.”

Aldi is on track to have all own-label packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2022. Since 2018, it has removed more than 2,200 tonnes of plastic and replaced almost 3,000 tonnes of unrecyclable material with recyclable alternatives.