Cadbury's Irish plant in Coolock is set to start making chocolate bars wrapped in 80% certified recycled plastic packaging. 

The packaging will consist of plastic from advanced recycling technology, and manufacturering will take place in both the Dublin plant and UK one in Bournville.

This move is the result of a collaboration with Cadbury's owner Mondelēz International and Amcor, who specialise in sustainable packaging solutions.

A third company Jindal Films – an industry leader in the development and manufacture of recyclable films designed for flexible packaging – was also involved.

Starting with a phased approach in 2025, the project aims to cover approximately 300 million sharing bars across the UK and Irish Cadbury core tablet portfolio.

The move will subsequently see the highest percentage of recycled flexible plastic used within the Cadbury brand globally.

Consumers can also access a new platform via an on-pack QR code to find out more about Cadbury’s sustainable packaging journey.

The platform also features the Recycle Now locator from WRAP, enabling customers to check local collection points for a wide range of packaging drop-offs.

SVP and UK and Ireland managing director at Mondelēz International, Louise Stigant, said, “This is the latest move in our journey to increase our use of post-consumer recycled plastic across our Cadbury tablets portfolio in the UK and Ireland.

“We remain focused on our long-term aim to offer more sustainable packaging, in particular, flexible plastic packaging using advanced recycling technologies.

“For us, this is based around a three-part approach aimed at reducing our packaging, evolving, and designing our packaging to be recyclable and improving systems by supporting the development of UK infrastructure and capabilities to collect, sort and recycle it back into food contact packaging.”

The head of material system transformation at WRAP, Helen Bird, added: “The biggest recycling challenge is plastic wrapping – collecting it at scale, sorting and recycling it into new things – ideally, packaging.

“Recycling this type of plastic back into food packaging can only be achieved through advanced recycling techniques.

“This is the future and must be scaled far and wide across other companies and product ranges.”