Aldi’s own-brand rice will be available in fully recyclable, monomaterial PE packaging developed by Coveris, with the rollout expected across January and February 2022. The new packaging is a result of a two year partnership between Coveris and Veetee, one of the UK’s largest rice suppliers, to launch the packaging for Aldi’s own-brand Worldwide Foods 1kg basmati rice and 1kg brown rice SKUs.
According to the companies, the rice was previously packed in a non-recyclable, OPP and PE mixed laminate. The SKUs will now be packaged in Coveris’ MonoFlexE monomaterial PE to PE laminate solution, which it says is fully recyclable and will reportedly enable around 30 tons of film to enter the soft plastic recycling stream annually.
Using Coveris’ extrusion and film science capabilities, MonoFlexE for rice is apparently packed with the same block bottom, FFS format and offers like for-like shelf-life properties and packing speeds as the former mixed laminate substrate. Coveris adds that MonoFlexE rice packaging is also available with up to nine color HD flexo print and gloss or matte varnish. Aldi is aiming for 100 percent of its own-brand packaging to be reusable, recyclable, or compostable by the end of 2022.
