What’s happening at Taylors?

Plastic is something which is getting a lot of focus worldwide, and here at Taylors. We’ve put a lot of work into evaluating where we use plastic and why.

Making changes to our products takes time, because with big changes comes rigorous testing to ensure the new materials we want to use are suitable. Sometimes we’re waiting for the perfect packaging material to become available so that we can ensure our products reach you safely at the quality you’d expect.

The Plastics Pact

In 2018 we signed up to the UK Plastics Pact which means we have targets to eliminate unnecessary plastic, increase the use of recycled plastic, and make all plastic packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025.

Historically, plastic has played a key role in our coffee packs. This is because we’ve found it to be the most effective and versatile material for keeping our coffee fresh. This is not only important to give our customers a high-quality brew but also to allow for a longer supermarket shelf-life, so that as little coffee as possible ends up unsold as food waste.

We’ve been working with suppliers to find viable alternatives to our current packaging which will still do the same job but which can be recycled. It’s taken a lot of searching and testing, but we’re pleased to say that our new roast and ground packs are now made from a material called Mono-Polypropylene (Mono-PP), which means that it can be recycled, as long as it goes to the right place. Take a look at the back of the pack to see if it has a label that says​‘recycle at large supermarkets’. If so, you can collect your wrap, along with other flexible plastics in your household and take it to a nearby store by checking your postcode here.

In the next few years more and more households will be able to recycle their flexible plastic and films at home, but many major supermarkets already have easy collection points at the front of their stores.

Our coffee bag envelopes are currently made from a mixed material film so they can’t yet be recycled in supermarkets but we’re working hard to move these to Mono-PP. In the meantime, we have set up a partnership with Terracycle so you can collect and send your bags for recycling – all the info you need is here.

If you want to know more about recycling our packaging, you can take a look at our how to recycle section for tips and pointers.