Does Chicken Really Need All That Packaging?
Pick up a pack of chicken in a supermarket and there can seem to be quite a lot between you and the food itself. Depending on the product, there may be a tray, film, an absorbent pad and a label, followed later by the carton or case used to move the packs through distribution. Once the chicken has been eaten, much of that packaging is still sitting in front of you, so reducing it can feel like an obvious environmental improvement. Sometimes it is. The difficulty is knowing how far you can reduce the pack before it starts affecting the food it was designed to protect.
Sometimes less packaging works
In 2023, Sainsbury’s removed the plastic trays from five own-brand whole chicken products. The retailer said the new packs used at least 50% less plastic and would save around 140 tonnes a year, equivalent to over 10 million trays. That is a substantial reduction and a good example of removing packaging without simply replacing it with another rigid format. It also shows why we should still question existing packaging. If a component can be removed while the chicken still reaches the customer safely and in good condition, there is little reason to keep using it.
What those figures do not show is whether the chicken's overall environmental impact fell by the same amount. Sainsbury’s reported the plastic saving, not the carbon footprint of the complete product. With food, those are two different questions.
The chicken itself has an environmental cost
The packaging is easy to notice because it is what we physically throw away. Most of the resources used to produce the chicken are much less visible by the time it reaches the supermarket. A study of four chicken products sold in Spain found that producing the packaging accounted for between 0.4% and 3.4% of the climate impact of the products examined, depending on the cut and packaging format. Those figures should not be treated as a rule for every pack of chicken. The study covered specific products and did not follow the complete journey through retail, the home and disposal.
It does, however, show why reducing packaging weight alone can give an incomplete picture. If less packaging has no effect on the chicken, removing material can be a straightforward improvement. If the change causes the product to spoil sooner or become damaged more easily, some of that benefit may be lost through additional food waste.
Shelf life can change the calculation
A 2024 UK study looked specifically at chicken fillets and modelled how changes in shelf life could affect what households bought, stored and eventually threw away. Across the shelf-life changes examined, the researchers found modelled reductions of between 1% and 18% in overall environmental impact. The largest reduction came from a scenario where opened packs lasted one additional day and unopened packs lasted three additional days.
That does not mean adding packaging cuts environmental impact by 18%. The research looked at changes in shelf life, not whether a heavier tray or an extra layer of material would produce that result. What it does suggest is that keeping a perishable food usable for longer can sometimes have a larger environmental benefit than the direct impact of the packaging involved.
A 2024 review of food-packaging life-cycle studies found something similar. In the studies it examined, reducing food waste through longer shelf life produced an environmental benefit that outweighed the direct impact of the packaging solution. Again, that is not an argument for adding packaging. It is a reason to judge the pack and the food together.
What happens at home changes the result
Pack size can be just as important as the material itself. A Belgian study of packed chicken and household behaviour found that the group the researchers called “major wasters” increased the environmental impact of the chicken food chain by 8.4% compared with households that did not waste the product.
A larger pack might use less packaging for every kilogram of chicken sold, but that advantage becomes less useful if part of the food is regularly thrown away. For somebody living alone, a smaller pack may make more sense even if it uses slightly more packaging per kilogram. Another household may use a larger pack easily.
WRAP estimates that UK households wasted 6.0 million tonnes of food and drink in 2022, including 4.4 million tonnes that could have been eaten. Around 40% of edible household food waste happened because people didn't use the food in time. Packaging cannot solve that alone, but shelf life and pack size can influence what happens after the chicken reaches home.
Different chicken products need different packs
A whole bird does not behave like chicken fillets, and breaded chicken brings different requirements again. Sainsbury’s has removed trays from some whole chickens while moving some fresh breaded chicken products into cardboard packaging. Both changes reduced plastic, but they used different solutions because the products were different. That is probably a more useful way to think about chicken packaging than looking for one material that is automatically better than another.
The pack needs to keep the product in good condition for the required shelf life and withstand how it will be handled. It also needs to suit the amount customers are likely to use. Recycling also needs to be considered in the market where the pack will actually be sold. A material being technically recyclable does not necessarily mean customers will have access to a suitable collection route.
A packaging change does not stop at the retail pack
Changing the primary pack can also affect what happens further along the packing line. A tray gives a product a fairly fixed form. Moving to a lighter or more flexible pack can change how it needs to be controlled as it travels through downstream equipment. Pack dimensions can change too, which may affect the carton or case used later in the process and how the finished packs are arranged inside it.
This is where Jacob White is typically involved. Our equipment works further downstream, handling finished products as they move into cartons or cases. If a producer is changing the primary packaging, it is useful to understand early on how the new format will behave once it reaches that stage of the line. A packaging change that works well on the supermarket shelf still has to travel through production reliably before it gets there.
So does chicken really need all that packaging?
Not always. Sainsbury’s has shown that a significant amount of plastic can be removed from a whole-chicken pack, and other changes are reducing plastic in different chicken products. But packaging is only one part of the decision. Chicken is perishable, and producing food that is later thrown away also carries an environmental cost. The best result is therefore not necessarily the lightest possible pack. It is the one that uses as little material as reasonably possible while still protecting the chicken and giving it the shelf life it needs.
If you are changing a chicken packaging format and want to understand how the new pack could affect downstream cartoning or case packing, contact Jacob White Packaging.
