Church leaders give blessing to plastic free egg

The Archbishop of York and the lead Bishop for the environment have welcomed a 'plastic free' version of The Real Easter Egg.

The change is in response to a survey which found that 96% of Christians think it is important for Easter Eggs to be plastic free and news that 11.5 million tonnes of food packaging waste is produced every year.  

We have replaced plastic bags, tamper-seals and Best Before stickers in our Dark and Original Egg with paper versions. There is still the same amount of chocolate in the Real Easter Egg and the box sizes are the same but the redesign means our Dark and Original Egg will save at least 5 tonnes of plastic and 175 tonnes of card in the next five years.

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, said; "I am delighted that an Easter Egg, which shares the Story of Easter, is leading the way by reducing packaging. Clearly there is demand for unnecessary plastic to be removed from food packaging and I encourage people to let other manufacturers know that changes can be achieved."

The Bishop of Sailsbury, The Rt Revd Nicholas Holtam, said; "As the lead bishop on the environment for the Church of England I am delighted that an Easter Egg, is taking seriously the care of our planet. This gets my approval.  Indeed, the packaging of Easter eggs needs a revolution."

In addition to being plastic free, the card used in the Real Easter Egg is 100% recyclable as is the foil. The chocolate contains no Palm Oil, said to have been responsible for about 8% of the world's deforestation between 1990 and 2008. Because the chocolate is Fairtrade certified the growers have received a donated cash bonus as well as a fair price.

Out of the 80 million eggs sold in the UK every year The Real Easter Egg is the only one which includes a 24 page copy of the Easter story in the box, is Fairtrade and supports charitable causes.

The free 24 page Easter story-activity book is illustrated by award winning artist Martina Peluso covers the final week of the life of Jesus and includes the events of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The book contains a prize competition worth £200. There are a range of different eggs available including a sharing box for church events.

Waste packaging facts

The UK produces around 11.5 million tonnes of packaging waste every year, and much of this comes from food and drink packaging. 
Which conducted a survey in 2018 and found Easter packaging can be very wasteful and make up more than a third of the total weight.

About the Real Easter Egg

The Real Easter Egg was first produced in 2010 by The Meaningful Chocolate Company following initial crowd-funding orders placed by churches and schools.
More than a million eggs have been sold.

More than £275,000 has be raised for charity through sales and promotions.
It is stocked by ASDA, Morrisons, Tesco, Waitrose, and a network of independent retailers and churches. 

Survey

In November 2018 1,000 Christians responded to a Survey Monkey asking them to rate how important it was for the Easter eggs the were to buy in 2019 to be plastic free 3.3% said not important, 33.28% Important, 63.58% very important.

The Rt Rev Nicholas Holtam is Bishop of Salisbury and Church of England lead bishop for the environment.  He chairs the Church of England’s environmental working group. More information: http://www.churchcare.co.uk/shrinking-the-footprint