Quality Street moves to recyclable packaging

October 3, 2022

Nestlé’s Quality Street has made the move to begin using recyclable FSC-certified paper packaging for its twist and wrap sweets worldwide. The move from its previous packaging, dual foil and cellulose to recyclable paper wrappers will see Quality Street reduce almost 2.5 billion pieces of packaging material from its global supply chain.

The packaging has been developed by packaging experts at Nestlé’s Confectionery Research and Development Centre in York, UK, and the Nestlé Institute of Packaging Sciences in Switzerland. The transition to paper packaging required development in engineering new materials, coating technologies, printing techniques and the adaptation of existing equipment.

Two Quality Street flavours – Orange Crunch and the Green Triangle – will remain in existing foil wrappers as they can already be recycled. Paper packaging for the nine remaining twist and wrap sweets will take a few months to fully implement, so consumers can expect to find existing and new wrappers in their cartons, pouches, tubs and tins until the end of the year.

“With nine different sweets to consider, the transition has been a huge undertaking. Each of our existing machines need to be adapted to run paper and then rigorously tested by our packaging experts to ensure we’re still delivering the same quality consumers expect when they open a box of Quality Street,” said Louise Barrett, Head of the Nestlé Confectionery Product Technology Centre.

Since its launch in 1936, Quality Street has been produced in Halifax, West Yorkshire and has been working to improve the sustainability of its operations and supply chains. The brand reports that it has used sustainably sourced cocoa since 2015 and Quality Street chocolate is made from milk sourced from farms in Scotland since 2003.

Smarties introduced recyclable paper packaging for its confectionery products globally in 2021, making Quality Street the second Nestlé brand to move to paper.

“Quality Street made history from the start, using the world’s first twist-wrapping machine to revolutionise the way chocolates were manufactured and sold. Now we are making history again with the introduction of paper packaging for our famous sweets. We hope the fact that our famous sweets are now recyclable will make finding your own Quality Street favourites even more popular this year,” Ms Barrett added.

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