Mars cuts Uncle Ben’s jar weight with help from WRAP

Glassrite Food, FAB & Soft Drinks, which was launched in August last year, invited food retailers and brands to take part in a series of trials aimed at lightweighting glass containers.

Now the first trial success has been revealed – a reduction of 6% in the weight of Mars’ Uncle Ben’s ambient sauce jars. The breakthrough means Mars will save 450 tonnes per annum in glass – equivalent to 1,215 tonnes of CO2 emissions, which is the same as taking 192 cars off the road.

Commenting on the GlassRite Food Project, Nicola Jenkin from WRAP’s retail team said: “This is a great achievement by the teams at Mars and Ardagh Glass. If other companies in the food and drink sector pursue similar innovations in the lightweighting of glass containers it will deliver major environmental and supply chain benefits.”

The project managers, Faraday Packaging Partnership in Leeds worked with Mars to identify the potential environmental benefits to be gained from lightweighting Uncle Ben’s. Then, working with glass manufacturer, Ardagh Glass in The Netherlands, Mars set out to reduce the weight of its 258g ambient sauce jar.

Frieda Sporen, Mars’ packaging innovations manager, said: “This project, which saw close co-operation between our factory and our glass manufacturer, managed to reduce the weight of the jar to 243g.

“Crucially, the new jar can be manufactured smoothly on our existing production lines. It has meant the creation of new moulds by our glass supplier and involved the slight increase in the diameter of the label recess area to create a smoother design, coupled with a slight reduction in the height of the jar. Together these innovations have delivered the lighter jar.”

Production of 30 million jars a year of Uncle Ben’s sauces will now switch to the new lightweight jar at the Mars factory in the Netherlands.

Mars recent achievement with its Uncle Ben’s sauce jar follows similar success in the lightweighting of its 500g Dolmio sauce jar last year.

Frieda Sporen added: “Mars is committed to ensuring the best protection of our products through high quality packaging while striving for minimal environmental impact. WRAP and Faraday Packaging’s support and guidance on improving the environmental impact of our packaging was very important to the success of this project.

Nicola Jenkin said: “WRAP has estimated that the food sector could save a minimum of 65,000 tonnes of glass and 175,500 tonnes of CO2 emissions by 2009 – the equivalent of taking 28,000 cars off the road. The food, flavoured alcoholic beverage and soft drink sectors account for 34% of the UK’s total container glass use, so even a moderate reduction in container weight can deliver significant cost reductions as well as reductions in CO2 emissions and glass waste.”

WRAP’s GlassRite Food project is led by R&D specialists Faraday Packaging Partnership, with support from the trade association British Glass. Several leading glass manufacturers, including Allied Glass Containers, O-I, Ardagh Glass, Beatson Clark and Quinn Glass, as well as major retailers and brand owners, are also signed up.

Brand owners and retailers who want to find out more about GlassRite Food should contact Mark Richmond from Faraday Packaging on 0113 284 0214 This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or Nicola Jenkin in WRAP’s Retail Innovation team on 01295 819 609, or email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it