Young’s Seafood cuts packaging for fish pie and salmon ranges

The firm invested around £125,000 in developing a new format for its standard range of fish pies that has retained product sizes while cutting packaging by 12%, reducing the amount of board used by around 242 tonnes a year.

The new pie packs, manufactured by Nampak, also take up less space in transit, which will cut the pallet loads distributed for the range each year by around 2,500 – equivalent to taking 100 lorries a year off the road.

Young’s marketing manager Matt Whelan said: “This has been a significant project that has taken around 10 months and an investment of £125,000. We had to do significant in-store testing to ensure the visibly smaller pack did not negatively affect consumer perceptions of the product.”

Director of sustainability for Young’s and parent Findus Group James Turton added: “This is another key initiative in our overall sustainability drive. We expect to achieve similar packaging reductions in coming months for other products in the group’s portfolio.”

The brand has also reduced the packaging for its chilled salmon line by 20% with a new “eco-flow-wrap” system, which the firm said sealed the product in a single layer of material and would reduce the amount of plastic used by 57 tonnes a year.

The company said it had made a “significant investment” in new packaging machinery to pack salmon in this way.

Young’s efforts to cut the environmental impact of its packaging were welcomed by Wrap as a move that would be beneficial across the supply chain.

“This is a welcome initiative that delivers significant benefits and supports Young’s work under the Courtauld Commitment,” said Wrap retail supply chain manager Charlotte Henderson. “It is exactly the kind of project the industry needs to pursue.”

The new packs will appear in stores this month.

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