ECMA presents folding carton criteria to Tesco

In late 2022, ECMA Managing Director, Mike Turner was approached by Tesco asking if ECMA could develop criteria they could use for assessing folding carton packaging functionality – this is an increasing focus from retailers and brand owners as demonstrated by Diageo announcing that outer cartons for some of their premium whisky brands would be removed or indeed Tesco conducting a trial to remove cartons from toothpaste packaging.

Over the last few months, Elodie Bugnicourt of GPI, Ian Lloyd & Katie Willmott from Westrock, Robert Davison from Alexir Partnership, Jon Clark from BPIF Cartons and Mike Turner have been meeting to determine the criteria ECMA could recommend to Tesco – it is important we emphasise the wide-ranging value that highly recyclable folding cartons can offer.

This presentation was recently sent to Tesco, and ECMA will be meeting them soon to discuss further – it is important to note that examples and pictures used are illustrative of broader categories and not to promote any particular product but rather to demonstrate qualitatively for broad categories the wide-ranging value provided by folding cartons.