John West's new can tower offers fully recyclable tuna packaging with less waste

John West has unveiled its new ECOTWIST® multipack for best-selling tuna products, aiming to reduce waste with fully recyclable packaging. Now available in Asda stores, the packaging will soon be in other major retailers.

ECOTWIST® eliminates excess packaging like shrink wrap and cardboard, using an aluminium strip to hold can towers together. This design, called SmartStrip®, is fully recyclable with the cans and saves over 400 tonnes of steel annually. The redesigned cans also reduce the amount of sunflower oil, spring water, or brine, saving an additional 1,500 tonnes of ingredients.

John West plans to transition all their products to sustainable packaging by next year, with ECOTWIST® playing a crucial role. The 'no drain' ECOTWIST® products are MSC-certified, and the company aims to extend this certification to the entire range by 2025. Their ultimate goal is to have all their tuna MSC-certified, positioning John West as the UK's most sustainable ambient seafood brand.

Mark Doherty, Managing Director at John West Foods, said: We have an ambition to be the most sustainable ambient fish brand in the UK by the end of 2025. “ECOTWIST^® is the best packaging and product we have ever brought to our consumers. We have spent three years developing ECOTWIST^® to reduce packaging waste in our consumers’ lives and to make our quality products taste and look even better. It’s the ultimate faff-free solution to busy lives – storing and opening the cans is so easy and thanks to no excess packaging, recycling has never been easier, saving our consumers time to enjoy our healthy and nutritious products.

John West claims it currently leads the UK in the number of MSC-labelled products in the ambient tuna category, ahead of all other brands and retailers' own brands.