Lotte Food Completely Phases Out Plastic Packaging for 'Chuseok Gift Sets'

Lotte Food employees are presenting the 'Eco-friendly ECO Gift Set' released for Chuseok in 2021. The plastic trays and plastic caps on canned ham have been completely removed, and the case is made purely of paper. (Photo by Lotte Food)

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Lotte Food is completely eliminating plastic from its gift set packaging materials.

Lotte Food announced on the 12th that starting this Chuseok, all 34 types of holiday gift sets will be changed to ‘Eco-friendly ECO Gift Sets.’ The size of the gift sets has been reduced, and eco-friendly paper is used as the packaging material.

The plastic trays previously used in gift sets and the plastic caps on canned ham have been completely removed starting this Chuseok. Instead, trays and boxes are made from eco-friendly paper certified by FSC (Forest Stewardship Council). With the removal of the tray containers that were typically included in the set packaging, the entire box is made of paper, creating a differentiated type of gift set.

The gift set bags, which were previously made of non-woven fabric, will also be made from FSC-certified eco-friendly paper starting this Chuseok. The printing on the cases and bags uses eco-friendly soy ink to reduce pollutants and facilitate recycling.

The size of the gift sets has also been reduced to eliminate unnecessary packaging. Only the essential space for the components is left, reducing the area by a minimum of 11% and up to 32% compared to previous gift sets. This not only prevents waste of forest resources but also reduces inefficiencies in logistics transportation by minimizing unnecessary space during gift set stacking.

A Lotte Food official said, “Starting this Chuseok holiday, we are completely eliminating plastic from gift set packaging and applying eco-friendly materials. Although the process of completely revamping the existing gift sets was not easy, we will continue bold attempts for eco-friendliness.”

Meanwhile, Lotte Food established an environmental management team dedicated to environmental affairs in March this year and is pursuing eco-friendly management across all business areas, from product planning and production to sales activities. In May, eco-friendly packaging was introduced for Papico products and Chef Food frozen home meal replacements (HMR), and in June, the company became the first in the industry to provide all sales staff with eco-friendly electric vehicles. Additionally, in August, Lotte Food expanded eco-friendly practices by adding separation disposal tear lines to the labels of Pasteur milk packages.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.