Magnum ice cream brand has rolled out more than 7 million ice cream tubs made with certified circular polypropylene from SABIC’s TRUCIRCLE™ initiative that uses feedstock made from recycling used, mixed plastic.
Magnum is the first to use recycled plastic within the ice cream industry and after a successful pilot launch in Spain, Belgium and Netherlands last year, the full roll out across all European countries is another exciting step to offer more sustainable packaging to consumers. New Magnum tubs have been developed in close collaboration of Unilever and SABIC. To be able to answer consumer’s expectations of robust packaging from Unilever’s A-brand ice cream, SABIC has developed a new polypropylene impact copolymer for frozen food packaging. SABIC’s material uses post-consumer mixed plastic as feedstock which is broken down into its molecular building blocks, to create virgin plastics which are then used to produce these new recyclable, ice cream tubs.
By the end of 2020, Magnum will use an estimated 160,000 kilograms of certified recycled plastic material. The move is part of Unilever’s wider global packaging commitment to halve the company’s use of virgin plastic, by reducing its absolute use of plastic packaging by more than 100,000 tonnes and accelerating its use of recycled plastic by 2025. The Magnum tubs are now available in Europe and due to be launched globally from 2021 onward.
All of Magnum's packaging soon will be fully reusable, recyclable or compostable and made with post-consumer recycled material to drive the circular economy approach. By using this new approach, Magnum hopes to lead the food and refreshment industry toward a more sustainable future, paving the way to a circular economy.