Family favourite supermarket chain Marks & Spencer has announced a new initiative to cut down the packaging of more than 100 of its products to make them more environmentally friendly.

‘Project Thin Air’ from M&S involves the downsizing of the packaging of more than 140 bestselling products. Instead of cutting back on the portion size the company has used smaller packets, reducing the air pocket in the packet and leaving the same amount of food as before.

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We’ve all had that gut-wrenching moment – ripping into what seems like a big bag of salt and vinegar crisps only to find that 80% of the bag is not delicious snack, but air. Marks & Spencer is reducing this misleading air pocket, which is not only helping the environment but also giving customers more realistic expectations when doing their weekly shop.

The main culprit was the company’s popcorn range, which was slimmed down by 37%, whilst elsewhere in the snack aisle the hand-cooked crisp range will now use 20% less plastic in its packaging. This was through adopting a thinner type of film for packaging, which remains as strong as its predecessor.

This is the latest move in the company’s ethical and sustainability programme, and the results are staggering. These changes, according to M&S, have reduced its yearly packaging by 75 tonnes, which equates to 152 fewer lorries on the road in 2017.  So not only is M&S putting less air in our crisps packets, they’re also releasing less pollution into our air!

This initiative is the latest in a string of packaging innovation from M&S. Earlier in the year, the company revolutionized the avocado world through using a new labelling machine to apply barcodes directly to the skin of the avocado. This saved the company 10 tonnes in labels and backing paper.

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Clearly, M&S is at the forefront of changing the food packaging market, and have more importantly done this whilst retaining the same amount of crisps in our packs, which is the best of both worlds.