Marks & Spencer has launched a scheme incentivising customers to bring their own reusable containers when shopping at its Market Place food-to-go counters.
M&S said it is the first big retailer to take such an initiative, designed to reduce single-use packaging.
Customers will receive a 25p discount for bringing their own containers to M&S’ 23 Market Place counters, which are typically in high-footfall city centre stores and sell 70,000 hot and cold lunches to go each week.
M&S director of food technology Paul Willgoss said: “Our priority is to reduce single-use packaging and ensure any we do use can be reused or recycled, as we work towards our 2022 target for all our packaging to be widely recyclable.
“Food-to-go is a growing market, so finding solutions in this space is an important part of our wider plan.
“Our Market Place containers are already widely recyclable, but we want to go a step further.”
The scheme is the latest by M&S, which also this week began to introduce a “widely recyclable” terracotta CPET tray to replace black plastic.
M&S said it is working with the wider industry and organisations, including environmental charity Hubbub, on other initiatives to encourage consumers to recycle food-to-go packaging.
Hubbub founder Trewin Restorick welcomed the Market Place scheme. He said: “It is massively encouraging to see M&S become the first major retailer to offer customers a financial saving encouraging them to make an important change to their shopping habits. We hope customers will respond positively and other retailers will follow this lead.”
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