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More than 80 million Easter eggs are sold in the UK every year. Each hollow chocolate shell is surrounded by a considerable amount of packaging to protect the fragile egg from breaking and contamination. So much so that in a number of Easter eggs the packaging weighs as much as the chocolate.

The Packaging Essential Requirements regulations require that packaging should be the minimum adequate to maintain levels of safety, hygiene and consumer acceptance. However, consumer acceptance of Easter eggs dictates that they make it to the public, often children, in one piece.

“The packaging of Easter eggs is a very important part of the gift and giving experience, and cutting out all of the packaging won’t be the solution,” says Asda confectionery buying manager Robert Berwis. Easter eggs are predominantly bought as gifts and unwrapping the layers of bright shiny packaging is part of the present.

Nestlé Rowntree is devoting the back of its Smarties and KitKat medium Easter egg boxes to encouraging children to recycle the packaging. This year, all Nestlé’s standard Easter egg cartonboard boxes are made from a minimum of 75% recycled fibre. The simple guide on the back of the packs explains to children that if they recycle the box this year, it could be made into a new Easter egg box for next  year. The clear plastic trays inside  the boxes are made from 50% recycled PET.

Nestlé has also made carton weight reductions across its 2008 range, with small egg cartons down 30% compared to 2006, and eggs for adults cut by 24%.

Weight watchers
Boxes Prestige manufactures cartonboard packaging for Thorntons. Sales manager Jon Basford has been working with the chocolate retailer to reduce the weight of its boxes. “We have gone down in calliper, to a thinner board. Previously, we were using a board that was around 540 microns, but the new board we have sourced is infinitely stronger and therefore we can reduce the weight to 450 microns, with the same strength and durability for creasing.” Basford explains that the new board gives a weight reduction of 15% compared with last year, and is being used across the majority of Thorntons’ Easter range.

The impetus to reduce the weight came from Thorntons, which was responding to its customers. The challenge, according to Basford, is that while manufacturers want to use the material that will perform best in terms of printability, creasing and gluing, the market is being led by environmental concerns.

Cadbury has taken the bold step of producing a shell Easter egg without outer packaging. The Treasure Eggs are foil wrapped, but do not have an outer box. They are displayed on shelves in a retail-ready corrugated tray, with a dimpled plastic tray inside, to keep the eggs in place – a reduction in plastic of 75% and 65% less cartonboard compared to a standard egg. They are being trialled in all channels for 2008, with a full launch planned for 2009, depending on consumer interest. While 45% of consumers say they actively seek to purchase products with minimum or no packaging, it remains to be seen whether their children are so environmentally conscious.

Cadbury has also introduced backless retail-ready trays, saving 115 tonnes of corrugated board. It has reduced the amount of PVC in small and medium shell egg packaging, to save 247 tonnes of plastic, compared to last year, although PVC packaging is not widely collected for recycling in the UK. For this reason, Mars has switched from PVC to PET thermoforms for all of its Easter eggs.

Waitrose is also keen to improve the recycling rates for its own-brand Easter egg packaging. Packaging and reprographics manager Karen Graley explains that it has tried to move the packaging closer to being made from a mono-material, replacing the cardboard components with rPET, to make it easier and more straightforward for customers to recycle. With the exception of the foil wrap, Waitrose has used 100% recycled and recyclable materials.

Paper provenance
However, Boxes Prestige’s Basford advises caution when using recycled materials, particularly recycled board. “If you buy a carton from Thorntons, I could tell you exactly which area of forest in Scandinavia the tree was felled in to make the board. When board is recycled, you can’t tell where the fibre has come from.” He adds that if you don’t know what a board was previously used for, it is hard to guarantee that it will be free from odours and potential contaminants – a particularly serious problem for the food industry. 

“We and our mills are FSC-accredited and you can’t have FSC on recycled board because you don’t know where it comes from,” says Basford. He also says that FSC has become something of a bandwagon – “everyone is jumping on it” – and FSC-certified stocks currently aren’t sufficient for demand.

Marks & Spencer also uses FSC-certified rather than recycled board for its Easter ranges, with 90% of own-brand Easter eggs packaged using FSC board. As part of its Plan A, the supermarket has committed to an overall reduction of 25% on all packaging and has reduced the total packaging on its 2008 Easter products by 17 tonnes.

This has been achieved by reducing the size and thickness of the packaging, as well as eliminating some elements altogether. It has reduced the packaging on its organic Easter egg by 75%.

The Soil Association’s packaging standards for organic foods were published in January 2007 and implemented in January of this year. This is the first time that such standards have been made a mandatory requirement of an organic certification process. Manufacturers must prove they are making progress in complying with these standards, although they are able to use up stock purchased before 2008.

The standards’ criteria state that in order to describe an item as organic, the producer must minimise the amount of packaging material used, maximise the amount that can be reused or recycled and, where possible, use materials with recycled content. No specific benchmarks are set, although manufacturers must undergo an audit. 

Organic aspirations
A range of materials are banned, including PVC and materials that contain, have been derived from, or manufactured using genetically modified organisms or genetically engineered enzymes. If bleached paper or cardboard is used, it must be Totally Chlorine Free (TCF). Compostable or biodegradable primary packaging (other than paper, cardboard and wood) must be clearly labelled to indicate the best means of disposal.

Last year, Sainsbury’s trialled the world’s first compostable Easter egg packaging for its So Organic eggs. The supermarket used Plantic Technologies’ organic, corn starch-based bioplastic to form a clamshell inside the cartonboard box.

However, Sainsbury’s print and packaging manager, Stuart Lendrum, explains that the Plantic material becomes frosted when it is thermoformed, making it look as if the chocolate inside has oxidised. “This year, we have done away with the clamshell altogether. The So Organic egg is foil wrapped and then placed in a cartonboard box with no film in the window.”

Sainsbury’s has also removed the foil from five of its nine boxed Easter eggs, of which two also have no clamshell. Where clamshells have been used they are made from rPET.

Of course, as Packaging Federation chief executive Dick Searle points out, if you don’t like the amount of packaging on Easter eggs, you could buy a bar of chocolate instead. “And when your child bursts into tears when you give it to them, tell them why you think it was important to reduce packaging.”