Quality Street to axe plastic wrappers on chocolates in bid to become more environmentally friendly

Quality Street is to ditch the plastic wrapping on its chocolates – replacing it with recyclable paper.

Nestle made the announcement on Monday, in a bid to become more environmentally friendly.

It will see Quality Street remove almost 2.5bn individual pieces of packaging material from its supply chain globally.

Two flavours – Orange Crunch and the Green Triangle – will remain in their existing foil wrappers as they can be recycled.

The company has stated that it will “take a few months” to implement the change in packaging for the nine twist-wrapped sweets.

Until the end of the year, both existing and new wrappers will be found in cartons, pouches, tubs and tins.

Louise Barrett, head of the Nestle confectionary product technology centre in York, said the company was “making history” by bringing in the new packaging.

“With nine different sweets to consider, the transition has been a huge undertaking,” she said.

“Each of our existing machines need to be adapted to run paper and then rigorously tested by our packaging experts to ensure we’re still delivering the same quality consumers expect when they open a box of Quality Street.

“Quality Street made history from the start, using the world’s first twist-wrapping machine to revolutionise the way chocolates were manufactured and sold.

“Now we are making history again with the introduction of paper packaging for our famous sweets.

“We hope the fact that our famous sweets are now recyclable will make finding your own Quality Street favourites even more popular this year.”