Single use plastic in Woolworths’ produce section increases

The last time I went to my local supermarket, there were more than a few egregious examples of unnecessary plastic packaging. Plastic cylinders crammed full of apples, tomatoes in plastic bags and three brown onions in a plastic mesh carrier.

Alongside frustration at what seemed like a wasteful use of plastic, I also felt curious. Why did it seem like there was more plastic than ever before? Is the ban on single-use plastic bags as effective as we may think? I decided to take a closer look at the regulations and survey the level of plastic in supermarkets’ produce sections.

What are the regulations?

The New Zealand Government set out to ban a range of hard-to-recycle and single-use plastic products in three stages. In 2022, Aotearoa said goodbye to PVC (polyvinyl chloride) food trays, polystyrene takeaway food and drink packaging, plastics with additives to assist in degradation, plastic drink stirrers and plastic stemmed cotton buds.

From 1 July 2023, the government banned, among other products, single-use plastic produce bags. They’re any “unsealed plastic bags that are provided by the store or retailer to pack fresh fruits and vegetables at a place of purchase.” Remember the big rolls of help-yourself produce bags that used to grace supermarket shelves? You’ll find paper bags in their place now.

The 2023 regulations contained an important exception, however. Single-use plastic produce bags are still allowed if the packaging is applied before the produce is placed for sale. This exception applies to any produce.

In theory, this means supermarkets can use as much single-use plastic packaging as they like, as long as it’s applied before sale. This is especially the case with supermarkets’ own brands, because whether something is packaged is up to their discretion, rather than external suppliers.

With this exception providing scope to increase plastic prevalence, exactly how big is supermarkets’ use of plastic in the produce section almost one year on from the ban?

About our survey

We collected our data from online shopping sites for Woolworths, New World and Pak’nSave between January and February 2024. We shopped from a range of Wellington locations including Countdown Crofton Downs, New World Wellington City and Pak’nSave Lower Hutt. We counted produce packaged in any kind of plastic packaging, including containers, plastic wrap and plastic bags. We excluded some products from our survey, like fresh herbs, salads and coleslaw kits, but included mushrooms.

The results

Woolworths

When we surveyed Woolworths, it offered 252 fresh fruit and vegetable products. Out of these, 176 (69%) of the products were packaged in some kind of plastic wrapping.

Of those products wrapped in plastic, almost 40% were Woolworths’ own brands, including The Odd Bunch and Macro.

New World

When we surveyed New World, we found it offered 256 fresh fruit and vegetable products. Out of these, we counted 110 that were packaged in some kind of plastic packaging. That’s 42% of products.

Of those products packaged in plastic, 49 (44%) of them were the supermarket’s own brands – Pams and Value. These included a number of products packaged without their branding visible. A spokesperson for Foodstuffs confirmed the unbranded produce was packed by its teams.

Pak’nSave

When we surveyed Pak’nSave, we found that out of the 127 fresh fruit and vegetable products available, 60 (47%) of them were packaged in plastic. Thirty-eight of those 60 products were Pams or Value branded products, as well as unbranded “in-store retail packaging”.

Supermarkets’ sustainability aspirations

Woolworths

Woolworths has lofty goals when it comes to packaging. In its sustainability plan, Woolworths says it wants to:

• halve the use of virgin plastic packaging against its 2020 baseline
• achieve an average of 60% recycled content in its own brand packaging by the end of 2025
• trial more refillable and reusable options for products
• phase out problematic and unnecessary materials in packaging, starting with its own brands by 2023.

Catherine Langabeer, Woolworths NZ head of sustainability, said Woolworths Group has achieved a lot so far. To date, Langabeer said the group has:

• reduced virgin plastic packaging by 26% against a baseline year of 2018
• used 49% recycled content on average in its own brand and secondary packaging
• achieved 94% recyclability across all own-brand packaging including soft plastics.

According to Woolworths data, in 2023 it reduced the virgin plastic in its own brands’ packaging by 2,106 tonnes across Australia and New Zealand.

I asked Langabeer why the baseline year used to measure Woolworths’ progress against its virgin plastic reduction goal had changed from 2020 to 2018. Langabeer confirmed that the baseline had shifted, saying the reference to a 2020 baseline in Woolworths’ sustainability plan was an error.

“Our Sustainability Plan was updated in November 2023 and this was supposed to include an alignment of the NZ own brand virgin plastic packaging baseline with the existing Group own brand virgin plastic packaging baseline of 2018. Unfortunately this was overlooked in the document update, hence the discrepancy. We are now addressing this.”

“Plastic in the produce section has likely increased”

Langabeer also said, “while we offer a wide range of loose produce, we do continue to use plastic packaging. Plastic packaging can play an important role in keeping food safe and fresh – preventing food waste.” She gave me the example of a telegraph cucumber, which she said, “dehydrates and gets damaged easily without protection”.

Langabeer is right. There’s a place for plastic packaging, especially where it helps prolong the life of fruits and vegetables. But a plastic net around a bunch of avocadoes isn’t likely to aid their longevity.

I asked Langabeer about other uses of plastic in the produce section. Langabeer said plastic packaging was used in some cases “to provide a convenience option for customers … and in other cases it is for the purposes of product differentiation”.

But Langabeer admitted that my suspicion about more plastics being used in the produce section was correct.

“Overall, we think plastic in the produce section has likely increased,” she said. “This is largely due to customer trends towards convenience, extending shelf life and reducing food waste, and the need for product differentiation.”

Foodstuffs

Foodstuffs has similar aspirations when it comes to the sustainability of its packaging. In its environmental social governance report for 2023, Foodstuffs says it has made a commitment to using 100% reusable, recyclable or certified home compostable packaging for its own brands by 2025. As of writing, that’s only 10 months away. I asked Foodstuffs how it was tracking against its goal and if it had any others.

Debra Goulding, Foodstuffs sustainable packaging programme manager, said this goal was a long-term commitment. According to its environmental social governance report, 98.9% of its own brands’ packaging was reusable, recyclable or home compostable.

But the report doesn’t specify the proportions of each type of packaging that make up its overall 98.9% achievement. For instance, how much of that comprises recyclable products? And what kind of recycling is involved? In-store soft plastic or kerbside?

A spokesperson confirmed all of Foodstuffs’ retail provided plastic is recyclable either though kerbside or soft-plastic schemes.

Goulding noted that a simple switch to paper or compostable options from plastic was complicated.

“Compostable options also rely on customers to compost at home or having the right infrastructure to be in place to be able to compost commercially, otherwise there’s a risk of the packaging ending up in landfill.”

Like Woolworths, Foodstuffs said there were a range of reasons for produce to come wrapped in plastic.

“[Packaging] reduces food waste, extends shelf life and reduces transit or in-store damage and reduces instore damage. Convenience is also a factor, some customers just want a to grab a bag of apples, rather than picking them out individually.”

Foodstuffs said the overall amount of plastic in its produce sections has decreased since the ban, though a spokesperson noted that this will vary between Foodstuffs North Island and South Island stores.

Are the regulations strong enough?

So, if there’s still significant amounts of plastic in the produce section – and by its own admission, even more now in Woolworths’ produce sections, despite bans and supermarkets’ commitments – does that mean the regulations don’t go far enough?

WasteMINZ, a collection of industry groups, including Foodstuffs, that represent the waste and resource recovery sector declined to comment on the supermarkets’ conduct. However, a WasteMINZ spokesperson said the produce bag ban was “an impressive achievement that will reduce plastic waste in Aotearoa New Zealand”.

“Regulations can always go further. Many of our members supported bans on single-use coffee cups and wet wipes containing plastic. However, New Zealand is considered to be the first country in the world to ban single use produce bags in supermarkets,” the spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for the Office of the Minister for the Environment did not comment on whether the regulations went far enough, but hinted at the difficulties that came with regulating businesses.  

“The staged phase-out approach means that items that are most achievable for industry to phase-out are targeted sooner, and businesses have time to change their manufacturing lines and processes for items that are harder to phase out.  This aims to strike a balance between making the phase-outs achievable and driving change as soon as possible.”

But it goes without saying that the regulations, especially the July 2023 produce bag ban, did not intend for single-use plastic prevalence to increase.

The next stage plans to phase out all other PVC and polystyrene food and drink packaging. This is due to take place in mid-2025. The spokesperson confirmed the final stage would still go ahead, but noted that the minister “is yet to make a decision on next steps for this third stage”.

Supermarkets can do better

In the current political climate, proactive steps taken voluntarily by supermarkets might be the only way to tackle the plastic problem. Both major supermarkets express a desire to be leaders in the world of sustainability and to do their part for the environment. Our survey reveals that a meaningful proportion of plastic in supermarkets’ produce sections is under supermarkets’ own control.

Even though they’ve set goals and commitments, there’s further scope for action. Some of it is as simple as removing unnecessary plastic packaging from produce that doesn’t need it, like apples or onions, instead of making the packaging recyclable. Foregoing more convenient options and innovating when it comes to brand differentiation will be essential.

In other cases, supermarkets could use easier-to-recycle plastics in place of plastic that can only be recycled through a soft-plastic recycling scheme.

But in the absence of appropriate and substantial voluntary action, stronger regulatory intervention may be necessary to reduce the scale of plastic waste stemming from supermarkets’ produce sections.