Easter eggs get greener with less packaging

Harry Wallop, The Telegraph 14 Mar 08;

This is the year Easter finally went green. Easter egg manufacturers - for years the scourge of environmental campaigners - have started to cut down on their packaging.

Shoppers for the first time in generations will be able to buy eggs with almost no packaging at all.

Cadbury's, which makes one in three of all eggs sold at Easter, has scrapped the boxes altogether on some of their lines, and selling eggs just in foil. Meanwhile Mars has used recycled cardboard to make the boxes of 11 million of the 14 million eggs that it has made this year. The company claims this move will save 12,000 trees.

Britons will eat an estimated 80 million chocolate eggs over the next two weeks - more than one for every person.

A report produced by Friends of the Earth in Scotland estimated that rubbish from last year's Easter chocolate rush included nearly 4,500 tonnes of cardboard and 160 tonnes of foil, with most eggs containing at least 25 per cent of their weight as packaging.

However, manufacturers and retailers have started to mend their ways and claim that shoppers have responded positively.

Sainsbury's has reduced the amount of packaging on its main luxury egg - the Taste the Difference Signature egg - by 61 per cent, by lopping off the back of the box and making it triangular.

The company says that cutting down on the cardboard and plastic has allowed it to increase the amount of chocolate because heavier eggs are more sturdy and do not need protecting as much.

Hannah Chance, at the supermarket said: "We're letting the chocolate sell the egg, not the packaging. Sales of the egg are up 4,000 per cent on last year, which is astounding. The increase can only be down shoppers responding to the lower levels of packaging."

The Chocolate Alchemist, an upmarket manufacturer of organic eggs, said that slimmer packaging made commercial sense. It has always sold its eggs in thin, see-through plastic boxes. "We are very proud of our chocolate and think our eggs are beautiful. I am always dubious about eggs that are shrouded in cardboard and foil. What are they trying to hide," said general manager Julian Wilson.

Not everyone is convinced, however, that shoppers will be completely won over.

Robert Opie, the owner and curator of the Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising, pointed out that Cadbury had tried a similar trick of selling an egg without a box 12 years ago, which failed to take off.

"Most eggs are given as a gift, and the packaging is important. It is part of the ritual for children - undoing the oragami-style covering to get to the egg."