On May 31, 2024, Reuters reported that Tesco was testing laser-marked avocados in about 270 stores in southeast England. Size or variety information appeared on the skin instead of stickers. Wider introduction depended on customer feedback; an annual saving of nearly a million stickers was a full-rollout estimate.
An earlier trial of unpackaged produce
The retailer had tested changes to fruit and vegetable packaging before. On April 5, 2019, Tesco announced that 45 packaged products were being removed from its Watford Extra and Swindon Extra stores where loose alternatives existed. Avocados were among the products, alongside apples, mushrooms, peppers, onions and bananas. The company planned shopper surveys and monitoring of each included product for increased food waste. Those checks formed part of the trial, rather than evidence of its eventual results.
Direct marking on a different product
On January 29, 2024, Coca-Cola announced a separate label-less Sprite trial in eight Tesco Express stores in Britain, scheduled for January–March. The 500ml bottles carried an embossed front logo and laser-engraved product and nutritional information on the back. Green and transparent attached caps distinguished Sprite from Sprite Zero. The locations were Brighton and Hove, Bristol, London and Manchester. The company's recycled-PET description applied to the bottle, excluding its cap.
The retailer's previous packaging figures
In a statement dated May 19, 2023, Tesco reported removing more than two billion pieces of plastic since 2019, including 500 million during the preceding twelve months. The figures concerned its wider packaging programme, not the later avocado experiment.
Examples in the 2023 statement
- More than 30 million plastic yoghurt lids removed.
- Nearly 24 million plastic windows removed from doughnut packaging.
Tesco also described a preferred-materials list based on recycling infrastructure and end-of-life outcomes, and its refusal to stock new products containing materials on the list's red category.