Cadbury to transition to recycled packaging

Mondelēz International has announced it will source recycled plastic using advanced recycling technology to use in a range of Australia’s Cadbury chocolate blocks.

Cadbury has partnered with Taghleef Industries to source the equivalent of 30% of the plastic needed to wrap Cadbury Dairy Milk family blocks from recycled sources. The look and feel of the recycled plastic will remain the same with Amcor providing the finished packaging material.

Darren O’Brien, Mondelēz International President for Australia, New Zealand and Japan, said the company’s investment in this emerging technology was a reflection of the increased focus on waste and expectation for brands to lead in sustainability solutions.

“Not only is this a world first for Cadbury, but Cadbury in Australia will be amongst the first anywhere in the world to buy recycled content soft plastic packaging. We’re setting new ground in finding solutions to meet the National Packaging Targets and the broader global challenges presented by packaging waste.

“While we’ve accessed the very latest technology from overseas to source this recycled material, we know that demand for circular packaging will continue growing and we’d love to see recycling technology built in Australia to meet local demand,” O’Brien said.

Simon Roy, Vice President and General Manager, Amcor Flexibles Australia & New Zealand said that Amcor was proud to be part of the solution, supporting the development of new technologies to help deliver local sustainable packaging.

“Our goal is to create safe, strong and secure packaging solutions partnering with our customers to help meet consumer needs. Reaffirming our commitment to ensuring all our packaging is designed to be recyclable or reusable by 2025.”

Taghleef Industries Asia Pacific’s Chief Operating Officer, Elie Jarrous believes that “the emergence of at-scale advanced recycling facilities opens up new opportunities to accelerate progress towards a Circular Economy”.

The recycled plastic material will be used for the Cadbury Dairy Milk family blocks range made at the Cadbury Hobart factory. At this stage, the recycled plastic material sourced equates to about 30% of the required plastics needed to wrap these products. This is just the first step to use recycled soft plastics as a circular material as the company is determined to increase the amount of recycled material in its packaging.

The first Cadbury Dairy Milk blocks to include recycled soft plastic in their packaging will be available in Australian supermarkets from September 2022.