3R roadmap for the bakery and pastry sector

Case study

Context

The national 3R strategy (reduction, reuse, recycling) sets the phase-out of single-use plastic packaging by 2040 and requires 42 sectors to produce a 3R roadmap. The FEB (Fédération des Entreprises de Boulangerie) and the CNBPF (Confédération Nationale de la Boulangerie-Pâtisserie Française), which represent industrial manufacturers and artisan bakers respectively, responded to this request together.

The sector brings together 37,000 artisan bakeries, 642 industrial manufacturers, about 2,000 bake-off outlets and large-scale food retail, with very different packaging, hygiene constraints and investment capacities. Mapping the packaging, then identifying realistic alternatives for each item, required technical, regulatory and economic expertise, which the federations entrusted to a joint team of two consultancies, I Care and GATE C.

Our approach

We first conducted about twenty interviews with CNBPF artisan bakers, FEB industrial manufacturers and several providers of new packaging solutions (IFCO, Notpla, CITEO, Revipac, Pyxo). A survey collected more than 100 responses from members, and two sites were visited. This data made it possible to map product/packaging pairs and to quantify, in tonnes, the plastic volumes generated by points of sale, large-scale retail and industrial sites.

The mapping distinguishes two families. For consumer packaging, it covers in particular plastic bags for sliced bread and viennoiseries, kraft paper bags with a plastic window, semi-rigid blister packs, cardboard pastry boxes with a plastic window, as well as tubs, salad bowls and boxes for snacking products. For industrial and commercial packaging, it includes pallet wrap, blue crate-liner bags, disposable thermoformed moulds and plastic food wrap. These items rely on different resins (PE, PET, PS, PP, PVC), whose recyclability differs.

We then assessed each alternative on the tonnage of plastic it avoids and on its availability, which produced nine detailed fact sheets. This work shows that plastic food wrap, the largest quantified plastic stream in points of sale, has no equivalent substitute. The 3R roadmap therefore treats it as a separate development topic.

Résultats

9 detailed fact sheets on alternatives, covering reuse, reduction and recycling

An action plan of 16 actions across 7 objectives, with a timeline from 2025 to 2040