Materials used and resource outflows

Main materials used

In 2024, total material consumption decreased 2.7%, due mainly to a reduction in the amount of plastic and paper packaging for Private Brand products. The specific value, which measures total material consumption per million euros in sales, decreased 10.9%, on top of the 11.2% decrease recorded in 2023.

In 2024, service and Private Brand product packaging incorporated 43.2% of recycled materials, 0.5 p.p. less than in 2023, particularly paper and cardboard, plastic and glass. Paper and cardboard packaging contained around 80% recycled materials. In total, around 200 thousand tonnes of recycled materials were used, 3.5% less than in the previous year.

Single-Use Plastics (SUP)

As a signatory of the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment (launched by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and UNEP – United Nations Environment Programme) and members of the Portuguese Plastics Pact, the Polish Plastics Pact (through Biedronka), the Colombian Plastics Pact (through Ara) and of The Consumer Goods Forum’s Plastic Waste Coalition of Action, we have made several voluntarily commitments to reduce the use of single-use plastic. These commitments were defined with the aim of reducing the inflow and outflow of resources used, ensuring the promotion of circularity, by following a waste management hierarchy: reduce, reuse and recycle.

By the end of 2025, we have pledged to:

• ensure that all Private Brand plastic packaging is reusable or recyclable;
• incorporate at least 25% of recycled content in Private Brand plastic packaging;
• reduce specific plastic consumption by 10%, compared to 2018, measured in tonnes of plastic packaging per million euros in sales;
• reduce virgin plastic used in Private Brand packaging by 15%, compared to 2018.

The consumption of single-use plastic (SUP) decreased 5.6% compared to 2023. SUP accounted for 34% (1.7 p.p. less than in 2023) of the materials used in Private Brand product packaging and service packaging, in check-out bags and pallet wrap. Of the total SUP in these categories, 19,867 tonnes were recycled plastic, corresponding to 11.6%.

In 2024, the use of virgin plastic decreased 7.9% compared to the previous year, 4.2% less than in the reference year (2018). In recent years, market conditions for collecting packaging waste and the amount of recycled plastic available for reincorporation into new packaging, especially those used for food, have changed little in the countries where our Companies are located. It will therefore be difficult to achieve two of our plastic-related commitments by 2025, that is:

• incorporating at least 25% of recycled plastic in plastic packaging;
• reducing the use of virgin plastic by 15% compared to 2018.

As regards the goal of reducing specific plastic consumption by 10% compared to 2018, measured in tonnes of plastic packaging per million euros in sales, in 2024 we were able to reduce specific plastic consumption by 42%, surpassing the target set in 2024.

By applying the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Recyclability Assessment Tool methodology, we determined that 57.1% of the plastic packaging of our Private Brand products is recyclable (15.1 p.p. more than in 2023). This figure takes into account the different polymers and plastic packaging formats, and the existence and effectiveness of sorting and recycling systems in the countries where we have operations.

Although our Companies have successfully completed numerous mono-material packaging projects, even where a recycling industry has been set up, there are still no sorting solutions for some flows (e.g. multi-layer polypropylene flexible plastics and hard polystyrene packages). Because of this, some plastic packaging formats are still classified as “non-recyclable” according to the aforementioned methodology, even where sorting and downcycling¹ circuits exist locally, as is the case in Poland and in Portugal. To increase the recyclability of the plastic packaging of our Private Brands, we have been eliminating problematic components (e.g. PVC and EPS polymers) that hinder recycling or reduce the quality and value of the recycled material. In line with our commitment, these components were eliminated from 91.8% of our packaging in 2024, the same as in 2023.

Waste management

Our businesses produced over 634,000 tonnes of waste, 7% more than in 2023, due to the growth of our Companies’ operations, as well as our increasing specialized perishable offer, namely at Biedronka. When taking tonnes of waste produced per million euros in sales into account, there was a 2.2% reduction in waste compared to 2023.

¹ Recycling process whereby the resulting materials are of an inferior quality to the original ones, so that the same products with the same quality cannot be manufactured, only those that require lower quality material.