INTERSPAR is testing paper bags for fruits and vegetables

At this very moment INTERSPAR is testing paper bags in eleven hypermarkets in Salzburg and Styria as an alternative to plastic bags for fruit and vegetable shopping.

Light plastic shopping bags are a well-known example of plastic waste. INTERSPAR is therefore constantly on the lookout for alternatives: reusable nets have already been tested, which will be available in all markets nationwide from the autumn onwards. As another alternative, INTERSPAR is now also testing paper bags for fruit and vegetables in the regions of Salzburg and Styria, alongside the well-known thin plastic bags.

"Ideally, our customers naturally have a reusable vegetable net with them. However, for the purchase of loose fruits and vegetables there needs to be another solution. For this purpose, we are testing paper instead of plastic bags for their practicability and acceptance among our customers," says INTERSPAR Austria Managing Director Markus Kaser.

Second test with paper bags
The SPAR Group has already gained experience with paper bags. Already in 2014 there were tests with paper bags at SPAR gourmet markets in Vienna. The brown paper bags did not prove successful at the time. "Our cashiers have to see what's in the bag, which is why we now are using a transparent parchment paper. We also optimized the size compared to the last test," said Kaser confidently.

The paper bags cost considerably more than plastic bags. "We bear part of the additional costs, but we also want to make sure that our customers participate in the costs and test whether the environmental concept is worth two cents per bag," Markus Kaser continues. The paper bags are made of FSC-certified paper, and can be disposed of -when clean- into the waste paper bin or -when dirty- into the bio-bin.

Measures for plastic reduction
SPAR and INTERSPAR are contributing to the reduction of plastics through a variety of measures. As part of the Sustainability Agenda of the Ministry of Sustainability and Tourism, SPAR and INTERSPAR saved more than 20 percent on their fruit and vegetable bags last year. In all product ranges, attention is being paid to resource-saving packaging, for example: the packaging of the 'SPAR enjoy sandwiches' was converted from plastic to cardboard with a plastics saving of 22 tons of plastic per year.

Source: spar.at