Wipak UK has worked closely with long-standing customer, Ornua Foods UK, to bring a new block cheese pack to market which delivers a 40% saving in plastic.

The Pilgrims Choice Megablock, which was launched at the end of September, will deliver a saving of over 40% of plastic per pack, with a projected reduction of 83 tonnes of plastic annually. It will also come in optimum-sized shelf-ready packaging containing more packs per case. This will help achieve a total packaging saving of 110 tonnes with a reduction of 1,321 road miles and 1.75 tonnes of C02.

“We are all looking for ways to reduce our impact on the environment,” said Sales Manager at Wipak UK, Wayne Hallsworth. “But deciding what is the right thing to do, whether it be recycling, compostability, using renewable resources – this is difficult and sometimes the right choice seems counterintuitive and might stop us from doing anything at all.

What Ornua have done, with our help, is to reduce the amount of packaging they use, and this is always the first thing to consider and always the right choice. Reduce the amount of material first whilst we look for more ways to further mitigate our impact. Ornua should be praised for their approach and should be an example of how we can all make small changes which have a big impact.”

Mike Harper, Ornua Foods UK’s Marketing Director, added: “We set ourselves the challenge of creating a format that enabled us to pack the same amount of cheese, using less plastic, whilst improving the experience of consumers. In short, we wanted a packaging solution that was ‘Less Plastic More Fantastic’ and we believe the Megablock delivers on this. The creation of the Megablock epitomises Pilgrims Choice’s challenger brand mindset in our determination to drive forward the category through delivering innovative solutions to consumer needs.”