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Survey exposes great cereal scam
8 January 1998
The survey, by Staffordshire County Council Trading Standards, looked at 133 breakfast cereal products. The worst offender was Sainsburys - who claim in their Environment Report that they aim to “use the minimum weight of packaging necessary for the packaging functions to be met”. Their Maple & Pecan Crisp packets were only 40 per cent full.
Other products with boxes half full or worse were:
| Sainsbury's Maple and Pecan Crisp | 40% |
| Somerfield Cornflakes | 44% |
| Sainsbury's Banoffee Crisp | 44% |
| Tesco's Triple Chocolate Crisp | 47% |
| Asda Triple Chocolate Crisp | 47% |
| Tesco Maple and Pecan Crisp | 49% |
| Safeway Luxury Fruit and Nut Muesli | 49% |
| Safeway Chocolate and Strawberry Crunch | 49% |
| St Michael Luxury Fruit and Nut Muesli | 50% |
| Sainsbury's Honey Nut Cornflakes | 50% |
| Safeway Honey Nut Cornflakes | 50% |
| Somerfield Luxury Muesli | 50% |
Friends of the Earth is demanding urgent Government action to reduce packaging waste.
Earlier this year Michael Meacher MP, now Minister for the Environment, stated in the House of Commons that “we need to set targets to reduce packaging” (Hansard, 3rd March 1997, column 648). Yet the packaging industry are campaigning against this and have recently said that “...we also doubt whether imposing a packaging minimisation target would help the environment” and that “Packaging reduction has happened, is happening and will continue to happen”.
Mike Childs, Senior Waste Campaigner at Friends of the Earth said:
“It's often jokingly said that the food value of cereal is less than the box it comes in. Perhaps that's because consumers are buying a large amount of fresh air. Despite all their green rhetoric, supermarkets are scamming consumers and creating excessive waste through over-packaging products. They are cereal tree killers. We want the Government to honour its pre-election pledge and set a target for reducing packaging and ignore the bleating by the packaging industry.”
[1] Full details of the Staffordshire Council survey are available from Friends of the Earth or from Graham Russell of the Council's Trading Standards Department, on 01785 259760.
If you're a journalist looking for press information please contact the Friends of the Earth media team on 020 7566 1649.
Published by Friends of the Earth Trust
Last modified: Jul 2008
