UK Supermarkets Make Limited Progress on Cutting Fresh Produce Plastic Packaging
UK supermarkets are facing renewed scrutiny over their use of plastic packaging after a new report found limited progress in making unpackaged fruit and vegetables a standard option for shoppers.
Research published by the Environmental Investigation Agency, or EIA, on September 15 found that major grocery retailers continue to sell large volumes of fresh produce in plastic packaging, including flexible films that remain difficult to recycle through the UK waste system. The organization also found that transparency around retailers' sales of loose fruit and vegetables has deteriorated compared with its previous comparable benchmarking exercise in 2021.
The issue is significant because UK households are estimated to discard around 13 billion pieces of fruit and vegetable packaging each year. According to the EIA, approximately 63% of this packaging is made from soft plastic, for which there is still no meaningful recycling route operating at scale in the UK.
The findings come despite years of voluntary commitments by retailers and the introduction of new financial incentives under the UK's Extended Producer Responsibility, or EPR, system for packaging.
Retailers Fall Short on Transparent Reporting
Many of the UK's largest supermarkets previously committed through the UK Plastics Pact to sell at least 30% of uncut fresh fruit and vegetables loose by 2025, with the ambition increasing to 50% by 2030.
However, the EIA said most retailers do not publicly disclose sufficient company-level data to establish whether they reached the 2025 target. Morrisons is the main exception identified in the research, continuing to state that around 30% of its fresh produce is sold loose.
Major retailers including Tesco and Sainsbury's do not publish comparable quantitative figures on the proportion of fresh produce sold without packaging, making independent assessment of progress difficult.
To investigate the market despite those data gaps, the EIA reviewed publicly available supermarket sustainability disclosures covering 2020 to 2025 and carried out in-store checks at nine major UK supermarkets during 2026.
The researchers found that loose produce was often available only on a limited or inconsistent basis. Where both packaged and unpackaged versions of the same product were offered, packaged formats were frequently more numerous or more prominently displayed.
At the same time, the study found evidence that packaging could be removed from a much broader range of products. Every fresh produce category examined by the EIA was available loose in at least two of the supermarkets visited, suggesting that technical barriers do not necessarily prevent retailers from expanding unpackaged options.
Plastic Reduction Meets New Financial Incentives
The debate is increasingly connected to the economics of packaging as the UK's packaging EPR system moves into operation.
Under the first year of EPR, producers are required to contribute towards the costs that local authorities incur when collecting and managing household packaging waste. For 2025 to 2026, the base charge for plastic packaging was set at £423 per tonne, compared with £196 per tonne for paper and card and £192 per tonne for glass.
From the scheme's second year, fees are intended to become more closely linked to packaging recyclability. Packaging will be assessed through the government's Recyclability Assessment Methodology, with less recyclable materials potentially facing higher charges and highly recyclable formats receiving lower fees.
This creates a stronger financial case for retailers and suppliers to reconsider difficult-to-recycle packaging, although the EIA argues that current incentives are insufficient to drive rapid reductions in flexible plastics.
The organization is calling for faster implementation of eco-modulated EPR charges so that hard-to-recycle soft plastics incur costs high enough to encourage redesign or removal.
Broader Packaging Transition Continues
The findings do not mean there has been no progress across the UK's wider packaging system.
WRAP's final UK Plastics Pact progress report found that 99.9% of plastic items defined as problematic under the initiative had been eliminated since 2018. Around 71.6% of plastic packaging was classified as reusable or recyclable, while average recycled content reached 28%. WRAP also estimated that greenhouse gas emissions associated with the plastics footprint had fallen by 20% since 2018.
The voluntary UK Plastics Pact has since evolved into the UK Packaging Pact, launched in April 2026 as a ten-year initiative covering a wider range of packaging materials. Its founding participants include Aldi, Asda, Co-op, Lidl, Marks & Spencer, Ocado Retail, Sainsbury's and Tesco, alongside packaging producers, waste companies, government bodies and industry associations.
The transition reflects a broader shift from focusing primarily on plastic recyclability towards reducing packaging use, increasing reuse and improving circularity across different materials.
Calls for Legislation on Loose Produce
The EIA argues that voluntary action alone has not generated sufficient progress in the fresh produce category.
Its recommendations include introducing a UK ban on packaging for whole, unprocessed fresh produce by 2030, subject to exemptions where packaging is demonstrably necessary for safety. It also proposes mandatory standardized reporting of loose produce sales and requirements for supermarkets to make unpackaged options the default where practical.
The organization has also called for the gradual removal of difficult-to-recycle films and ultra-light produce bags.
The issue has become more important following the government's decision to delay mandatory household collection of plastic films and flexible packaging until 2030. The EIA argues that the delay increases the importance of reducing these materials before they enter the waste system rather than relying primarily on future recycling infrastructure.
For supermarkets and food suppliers, the findings point to a growing combination of regulatory, financial and reporting pressures. Retailers may increasingly need to demonstrate not only that packaging is recyclable or contains recycled material, but also that packaging is necessary in the first place.
As the UK's packaging policy shifts towards producer responsibility and more circular systems, fresh produce is likely to remain a closely watched test of whether retailers can move from incremental packaging redesign towards avoiding single-use material altogether.
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