Waitrose has launched its 2023 Easter food range, with reduced packaging to save nearly one tonne of plastic from going to landfill.
The upmarket retailer has stopped using plastic trays and removed plastic windows from nearly all of its Easter confectionary, with its overall packaging weight reduced by almost 20%.
“This is truly our most exciting Easter range to date, not just because of the delicious innovative products but because of the incredible work that has gone into reducing our use of plastic,” Waitrose confectionary product developer, Sarah Breadmore said.
“This is a big step in our commitment to remove unnecessary packaging and we look forward to making even more changes in the future. Whichever sweet treat you choose, I hope you enjoy finding your new favourites this Easter.”
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Waitrose has brought back its Sunny Side Sam chocolate fried egg back this Easter alongisde its chocolate bunny, Hip Hop Harri and new addition, a milk chocolate tortiose shell, Take it Slow Boe.
Ribbon Easter Eggs have been added to this year’s confectionary offerings in caramel, orange and raspberry flavours, as well as two types of fudge in chocolate marshmallow and carrot cake.
Heston Blumenthal has also added a new ‘The Chocolate Dabbit’ to the Heston from Waitrose range, which features a dark chocolate shell filled with salted blonde chocolate truffle.
Across its bakery products, Waitrose is set to offer Luxury Hot Cross Buns, Mature Cheddar and Stout Hot Cross Buns, Chocolate and Orange Panettone and a Carrot Patch Cake, with the entire range available from 7 February.
Head of product innovation, Emma Beale said: “There is something for everyone to get excited about this Easter, from edible social media stars to savoury buns and even Easter panettone.”
The supermarket giant has said customers are planning ahead for Easter this year with searches on its website for ”Easter’ up 89% and ‘Easter eggs’ up 110% in the past two weeks.
Beale added: “With Easter searches rapidly rising on waitrose.com as our savvy customers start planning ahead, we know they are going to be excited to add this fantastic selection of Easter goodies to their baskets when they launch in store next month.”
This comes as Waitrose has launched two wrap-free bouquets for Valentine’s Day, to further its commitment to remove unnecessary packaging and limit single-use plastic.
Giving customers the option of shopping more sustainably, the wrap-free Premium Valentines Rose Bouquet and Rose & Lily Bouquet will be protected in a layer of Fatsia palm leaves instead of cellophane.
