Nestlé Australia has announced that KitKat will be Australia’s first chocolate bar with a wrapper using recycled plastic.
More than 40 million 45g KitKat bars will be packed in the 30 per cent recycled content wrapper in the next year, cutting virgin plastic use by around 250,000m2, enough to cover more than 200 50m swimming pools.
Nestlé Oceania General Manager, Chris O’Donnell, said the company was on a mission to cut its virgin plastics use by a third by 2025.
“Introducing recycled content in our packaging will make a significant impact against our 2025 ambition. We’ve implemented a number of changes to reduce our use of virgin plastic but this switch, the first of its kind, will be a huge step change.
“We know consumers want our packaging to use more recycled content, so we’re delighted to deliver the KitKat 45g bar as Australia’s first food product to be wrapped in soft plastic made with recycled content.
“For KitKat fans, the news is all good. The 30 per cent recycled plastic wrapper will keep KitKat bars crisp, fresh, and delicious, while we focus on giving the planet a break. When they’re finished, they can continue to recycle their wrappers through the REDcycle scheme.”
The wrapper is also Nestlé’s first soft plastic food wrapper globally to use recycled content.
“Soft plastic with recycled content that’s suitable for food packaging isn’t widely available anywhere in the world – we’ve been searching high and low to find as much of this material as we can from our suppliers. As more becomes available we’re hoping to increase the amount we can source for our packaging,” O’Donnell said.
Nestlé is focused on using less packaging that is better for the environment, and O’Donnell says that the KitKat announcement is a huge step in the right direction.
“But we’re not at our end destination yet,” he says. “This is a journey of ongoing innovation.
“In the meantime, we’ve committed to invest CHF 2 billion globally to stimulate the market and lead the shift from virgin plastics to food grade recycled plastics.”
The 30 per cent food grade recycled plastic wrapper is supplied by Huhtamaki. The recycled content has been allocated using the mass balance approach and certified by ISCC.