A greener Mercadona

Mercadona will invest more than 140 million euros in the next five years to reduce plastic. The company has the triple goal by 2025 of reducing plastic by 25%, making all packaging recyclable and recycling all plastic waste. This is the strategy of the supermarket chain in its fight to be more sustainable.

To address this issue, the UPF Barcelona School of Management has organized a talk with Adela Torres, Mercadona's environmental manager, with the presence of Josep Francesc Valls, director of the chair of future retail scenarios, and Carolina Luis, director of the chair of circular economy at Mercadona.

To begin with, Valls wanted to emphasize that "we no longer have to consider the survival of the planet to address the transition to the circular economy, it already has its own traction for various reasons". In this sense, he has affirmed that "innovation, the participation of society and the trend towards healthy products" is already pushing companies to embrace this model. "It is true that the planet has its limits and the linear economy forces them, so the circular economy is already a natural step," he said.

Luis has continued to comment that "the circular economy is an economic system and offers economic profitability, that is why companies have to be clear that it is a necessity to embrace it". The teacher took the opportunity to explain that "the chair we focus on the agri-food sector and distribution, which leads to the day-to-day life of our homes" and wanted to give Torres, who explained the strategy of the Valencian supermarket chain in this sense.

Adela Torres, Mercadona's environmental manager, explained that through the so-called Strategy 6.25 the chain began working on this plan in 2019. Mercadona has its own Environmental Management System and applies the principles of the Circular Economy in various processes , with the premise of doing more with less impact. This effort is focused on promoting sustainable logistics, energy efficiency, responsible waste management, sustainable production and reduction of plastic.

Strategy 6.25, which has the triple objective by 2025 of reducing plastic by 25%, making all packaging recyclable and recycling all plastic waste, is being carried out through six actions that involve changes in different processes of the company, from defining the packaging of the future, to coordinating with suppliers, adapting stores, waste management, logistics, etc.

In this sense, Mercadona has numerous examples, such as Logifruit's reusable packaging pool, which has been in operation for 25 years; the waste management model, thanks to which the company gives a second life to 220,000 tons of cardboard and plastic in the year (100% of the packaging that the company uses and subsequently recycles), or the elimination of the disposable plastic to the line of boxes that it implemented in 2019 and that made available to customers a recyclable paper bag, a plastic bag made with recycled plastic and the reusable raffia basket made with recycled material, which was implemented years ago throughout the chain.

Strategy 6.25 has a triple objective until 2025, which Mercadona will achieve through the development of 6 actions:

1. Eliminate disposable plastic bags.
2. Eliminate disposable plastic items.
3. Reduce plastic packaging.
4. Recyclable packaging for your products.
5. Separate to recycle all store waste.
6. Communication campaign to help recruit customers.

The plastic bag to the boxes has already disappeared. Until 2025, the company is committed to reducing the use of plastic in its packaging by 25%, eliminating those that do not add value, replacing them with other materials and incorporating recycled plastic. In addition, Mercadona is committed to making all its plastic packaging recyclable by 2025.

With the fifth action of Strategy 6.25, Mercadona undertakes to recycle 100% of plastic waste from physical stores and from the Home and Online Service.

Finally, Mercadona will help customers to recycle by providing them with useful information on recycling, both in the store and on the packaging, through indicative pictograms.