Tesco has pledged to remove shrink-wrapped multipacks across all its own-brand and branded tinned food in a move that will remove 350 million tonnes of plastic a year.

The scheme – the first of its kind by a major UK retailer – has seen the supermarket giant join forces with canned food firms including Heinz, John West, Princes and Green Giant to remove all plastic-wrapped multipacks and replace them with multi-buy deals.

The new guidelines will apply to all canned food, including household favourites such as baked beans, sweetcorn, soup and tinned tomatoes.

Tesco will roll out the changes from 2 March 2020, with no more plastic-wrapped multipacks ordered by the group from then. However, it will continue to sell remaining stock.

The company said the pledge will see 67m pieces of plastic removed from its stores, taking it another step nearer its aim of cutting out one billion pieces from its own products by the end of the year.

According to Tesco, more than 40 per cent of its customers buy tinned multipacks, with 183,000 sold across its stores every day.

More than 100 million Heinz products alone are sold in plastic-wrapped multipacks each year through Tesco.

Heinz said it is looking at similar initiatives with other retailers, estimating that if it could be expanded across the entire market, it would help reduce CO2 emissions by as much as 3,300 tonnes.

Dave Lewis, Tesco chief executive, said: “We are removing all unnecessary and non-recyclable plastic from Tesco.

“As part of this work, removing plastic-wrapped multipacks from every Tesco store in the UK will cut 350 tonnes of plastic from the environment every year and customers will still benefit from the same great value ‘multipack’ price.”

Georgiana de Noronha, president of Kraft Heinz in Northern Europe, said: “While we know we have more to do, this initiative is good news for the environment, and for the millions of people who enjoy Heinz varieties every day, as they’ll still be able to benefit from the same great value for money our multipacks provide.”

At the end of last year, Tesco removed all hard-to-recycle materials from its own-brand products and is working with suppliers to do the same.

The group has also warned 1,500 suppliers that packaging will be a deciding factor on which products are sold in its stores.

Environmental organisation Greenpeace has praised Tesco for its decision and urged other retailers to follow suit.  

“It’s great that Tesco are getting rid of multipack plastic packaging that’s completely pointless and are also pressuring their branded suppliers like Heinz and Branston to do the same” Fiona Nicholls, ocean plastics campaigner for Greenpeace UK, told the BBC. 

“This is such an easy, common sense first step that all supermarkets should have done this long ago. We urge retailers to end the nonsense of double-plastic packaging on all products straight away, and be bolder by introducing reusable and refillable packaging.”

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