Modern Milkman has become the first company in the UK to introduce home-compostable bread bags to customers, as the doorstep delivery business looks to cut plastic waste across its bakery range.

The British scale-up, which has built its proposition around modernising the traditional milk round, is rolling out the new packaging in partnership with Treetop Biopak.

The bags are fully home compostable and designed to break down naturally in around 12 months without leaving behind microplastics or pollutants. Modern Milkman said the waterproof single-layer film will keep bread fresh while also allowing customers to dispose of it in food waste bins, home compost heaps or reuse it as an organic waste bin liner.

The new packaging is being introduced across the retailer’s fresh bread range, including loaves supplied by bakery partner Bread of Life as well as products from a network of local bakeries nationwide. The rollout is underway and will come at no extra cost to customers.

Modern Milkman head of commercial Jenny Thomason said: “The search for a solution that protects the quality of our bakery on the doorstep in an eco-friendly way has taken years – so we’re really excited to launch this to our customers.

“We’re incredibly proud of this move, bringing us one step closer to our mission of ensuring that with the products we deliver absolutely nothing goes to waste.”

Treetop Biopak chief executive Amir Goss said the partnership showed that demand was growing for packaging solutions that could deliver both product protection and environmental benefits.

“We are delighted that the strengths of our compostable solutions have been recognised and adopted by a proactively environmentally responsible operation such as Modern Milkman,” he said.

“Performance strength was as fundamental as compostability in the decision to create this circular packaging approach.”

With an estimated 11 million to 12 million loaves of bread sold in the UK each day, the move could mark an important step in reducing reliance on conventional single-use plastic bread bags, many of which end up in landfill or are incinerated.

Sign up here to get the latest grocery and food news each morning