Sainsbury’s has announced plans to extend its plastic milk bag format across its entire range of own-brand milk following a successful trial of the eco-friendly packaging .
The supermarket chain said sales of its two-pint semi-skimmed milk bags, which have been available since February, are currently running at 120,000 per week, more than double the number originally predicted and accounting for one in every ten 2-pint semi-skimmed units sold.
In response to the “bumper” sales, Sainsbury’s has begun selling whole milk bags and confirmed it will add skimmed and 1 per cent-fat milk to the format next June, making to the first UK retailer to offer all fat varieties in bags .
Sainsbury’s senior dairy buyer Emma Metcalfe King said: “We’ve been blown away by the positive response. Rather than being wary of new packaging, customers have lapped-up the bags .”
“We’ve expanded the milk bag range to all varieties to enable more customers to save plastic and money.”
“Milk bags in all fat varieties are already a regular choice for 60 percent of consumers in Canada, Poland, South Africa and China and we believe they will be just as popular in the UK.”
The introduction of plastic milk bags is part of the supermarket’s wider plan to reduce packaging by a third by 2015.
Each bag uses 75 per cent less plastic than the equivalent two-pint bottle, is cheaper to produce, takes up less space when disposed of and costs at least six pence less to buy.
Sainsburys said customers switching to bags could save up to 1,400,000kg of packaging every year.
