Frosta throws the plastic bags out: Already from January 2020, the new bags are to come on the market and replace the old plastic bags. "Our new paper bag replaces plastic with paper, it's unbleached and uncoated and comes from sustainable, FSC-certified forestry," says Frosta. For a total of three years, Frosta worked on the new packaging. The inside of the packs consists of a high-density paper, the outside of tear-resistant paper. According to Frosta, the packaging should be compostable.
According to the company, the paper was purely physically processed to make it impervious to grease and moisture. The process has been developed by Frosta and patented. The new paper bags are to replace up to 40 million plastic bags, it says on the company's homepage. By the end of 2020, no more plastic packaging should be used by Frosta.
Frosta throws plastic out of the TK chest
Environmental organizations such as the WWF welcome such steps – albeit not fully. Because paper does not automatically have a better life cycle assessment. However, the material from Frosta is "an advance", says Daniel Müsgens, wood and paper expert at the WWF. Whether this paper now has an effect on the industry, however, was open.
However, the new packaging not only benefits the company. According to the "Lebensmittelzeitung" the product presentation suffers through the paper bags. "On the unbleached paper our product photos do not look as brilliant as before, but we gladly put up with that for the sake of the environment," the newspaper quotes Frosta board member Hinnerk Ehlers. "The look now looks like eco – for us it is also a risk," said Ehlers to the "world". Since the development of the new packaging material was quite expensive at around two million euros, Ehlers is planning to raise prices for its TK products in the retail sector by around 20 cents.