This solution was awarded Supply Chain Solution of the Year at the 2022 UK Packaging Awards.
THE CHALLENGE
Premier Foods, one of Britain’s largest listed food companies, is actively working to reduce its environmental impact. Not only does Premier Foods want to increase sustainability efforts on a corporate level, but it also wants to help customers make more sustainable choices. To work toward those goals, Premier Foods wanted to rethink the packaging of its popular Bisto Gravy product.
THE SOLUTION
Determined to identify packaging that uses fewer resources, Premier Foods chose to partner with Sonoco.
Working collaboratively, Premier Foods and Sonoco identified a new-sized packaging format for Bisto Gravy that gives shoppers more gravy product and more sustainable packaging, without altering their cost.
The new Bisto Gravy packaging comes in recyclable paperboard drums that are 8mm smaller than the previous edition. Smaller size doesn’t mean less product though! Shoppers have an additional 20g of gravy granules (190g total), or approximately six more portions per tub, for the exact same price as before. The smaller, more resourceful packaging will save 40 tonnes of paper annually at Premier Food’s Bisto manufacturing line in Worksop, Nottinghamshire.
“Reducing the size of our drum is a great example of how small changes can ladder up to make a big difference,” said Savan Sabharwal, Marketing Controller at Bisto. “We make around 50 million Bisto gravy drums each year, so change of this scale requires real collaboration. We’re really pleased to have found a more sustainable solution while retaining the quality of Bisto that people love and expect.”
Sonoco’s paperboard container is made from recycled paper fibre, including a paperboard end. All inks and adhesives are water-based, and all materials used in the packaging are easily separable within the recycling process. The U.K. requires at least 85% paperboard* to accept packaging in the paper waste stream, and the Bisto drum exceeds that requirement as it is made of 95% paperboard, allowing shoppers to dispose of all empty Bisto caddies via U.K.-wide kerbside recycling collections.
ABOUT THE COMPANIES
Premier Foods, one of Britain’s largest food producers, supplies a range of retail, wholesale, foodservice and other customers with some of the nation’s best loved brands, including Ambrosia, Batchelors, Bisto, Loyd Grossman, Mr. Kipling, Oxo and Sharwood’s. The company employs nearly 4,000 people operating from 15 sites across the country.
Sonoco, a 120-year-old packaging provider, specializes in all types of packaging, including rigid paper containers and flexible and rigid plastic for the food industry.
Learn More About Sonoco's Rigid Paper Containers
*The U.K. currently requires at least 85% paperboard to accept packaging in the paper waste stream, with a plan to increase to 90% required by 2023. This paper-based packaging format exceeds that requirement as it is made of 95% paperboard.
