Morrisons to introduce plastic-free fruit and veg areas

Morrisons will roll-out plastic free fruit and vegetable areas across 60 of its stores during 2019. They will then continue to be introduced as part of the supermarket’s ongoing store refurbishment programme nationwide.

Customers will be able to choose from up to 127 varieties of fruit and veg, with the option to buy them loose or put them in recyclable paper bags.

The move was originally trialled over ten-months in three of Morrison’s stores including Skipton, Guiseley and St Ives, where the amount of loose fruit and vegetables bought by customers increased by an average of 40 per cent.

The supermarket store expects the new 'buy bagless' fruit and veg shelves to result in a similar switch from bagged to loose, saving an estimated three tonnes of plastic a week, equating to 156 tonnes a year.

Drew Kirk, Fruit and Veg Director at Morrisons said: “Many of our customers would like the option of buying their fruit and veg loose. So we’re creating an area of our greengrocery with no plastic where they can pick as much or as little as they like. We’re going back to using traditional greengrocery and we hope customers appreciate the choice.”