Environment

Packaging Federation chief executive Dick Searle has secured meetings with two major supermarkets to discuss ways to improve public understanding of packaging, but has blasted another four that have not replied to a letter he sent almost a month ago.

Representatives from Tesco and Marks & Spencer have agreed to meet Searle in early June, but Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Waitrose and Asda have not yet responded to his approach, which has led him to brand their conduct “reprehensible”.

“Whether supermarkets like it or not, their existence depends on the products we make,” Searle told Packaging News today.

In his 17 April letter (see Related Stories link), Searle said packaging would remain an “easy and soft target” until there was a “much better understanding” of its benefits and the “huge difference” it had made to retailing, society’s shopping and eating patterns, and the minimisation of waste in the food chain.