Ten Easter eggs were analysed from these manufacturers and brands: Ferrero, Moo Free, Marks and Spencer, Mars, Reese's, Aldi, Thorntons, Nestlé, Cadbury and Terry's.
Researchers compared several factors, including:
- Price
- Packaging (if it’s made from recycled materials)
- Content and number of different materials used (plastic, cardboard, foil, film, paper)
- Total weight of the packaging materials
- Weight of the actual chocolate products
- Recycling instructions (if available)
- Percentage of the product that is packaging
- Percentage of the packaging material that could be recycled at home.
Terry’s Chocolate Orange Egg took the top spot with only 17.7% packaging. The Easter egg, which comes complete with a full Terry’s chocolate orange, alongside the egg itself, is priced at around £5.50. The product also ranked as the most sustainable overall due to its use of just two materials - foil and cardboard. The Easter egg also provides clear instructions for how to recycle the packaging and the packaging uses no plastic at all.
At the other end of the scale, in last place was the Moo Free Moo Freesas Choccy Egg with a whopping 38% packaging. The product is the only vegan item on the list and costs around £6.95. 42% of the packaging was made of plastic, but the brand does provide a QR code to explain why it uses these materials, explaining that cardboard can affect the taste. It’s also worth noting the plastic used is already recycled.
Which Eggs Have The Most Sustainable Packaging?
Terry's Chocolate Orange Egg again places first with a sustainability score of 66.7 out of 100. Cadbury’s Creme Egg Hollow Milk Chocolate Egg comes in second place with a score of 63.3 due to its low percentage of packaging at 19.9% and its use of 100% recyclable materials.
The Ferrero Rocher Easter Egg White Chocolate took last place with a score of just 16.7 out of 100. The product scored poorly as it had no instructions for how to recycle the packaging, which makes up 30% of the product. Alongside this, the product uses four different materials - plastic, cardboard, foil, and paper.
Surprisingly, the only vegan Easter egg also ranked low for sustainability. The Moo Freesas Choccy Egg and a bag of Moofreesas scored just 28.9/100 due to 38% of the product being made up of packaging, alongside only 96.3% being recyclable at home.
Mark Hall, plastic waste expert at BusinessWaste.co.uk, comments:
“Over the years, many Easter egg producers have made great strides to reduce the use of plastic in their packaging. Yet our research shows there’s still further to go when it comes to sustainable packaging.
“To find products with close to 40% packaging is quite surprising and unnecessary. Alongside this, we were shocked to find only two products making use of already recycled materials. However, it is great to see nine out of ten products clearly marked with recycling instructions and most packaging having high recyclability rates.
“We’d love to see manufacturers pushing further to reduce unnecessary packaging with Easter products. This would benefit the environment and allow consumers to clearly see what produce they’re getting for their money.”
The full raw dataset can be found here. Full imagery of each product can be found here. The full study can be found here.