Greiner Packaging has successfully replaced yogurt multi-packs made from polystyrene (PS) with polypropylene (PP), and thanks to ‘Project Snap’ has recreated an important feature that has always been popular with consumers.
Yogurt multi-packs have traditionally been made from polystyrene (PS), but there is currently no PS recycling stream in the UK and supermarkets have focused on removing all PS products. Seeking to deliver a sustainable alternative, in February 2018 Greiner Packaging’s Dungannon factory began trials using polypropylene (PP), and was first in the UK to recreate a functional multi-pack in PP.
One of the advantages of PS was its ability to deliver a really effective ‘break’ which was initially difficult to achieve with PP. Leading UK retailer Tesco was one of the first customers to move from PS multi-packs to PP multi-packs, but consumers were disappointed that packs made from the new material did not ‘snap’ in the same way as the previous PS packs.
In July 2020, Greiner Packaging began ‘Project Snap’ to develop and improve PP multi-pack breakability. By October 2020, the first successful filling trials of the latest PP 4-pack had begun, and the new improved yogurt 100g 4-packs are now on-shelf.
We needed to remove PS from our packaging and Greiner Packaging helped us with the move to PP. However, our customers were always accustomed to the easy "snap" of the old PS yogurt multi-packs and we needed to further develop this feature with the new recyclable PP packaging. Greiner has been at the forefront of these developments and worked with us quickly to re-engineer the PP multi-pack to give it the same "snap" quality of PS.
Denise Mathieson, Tesco Senior Packaging Manager
