June 5, 2026 14:55

Germany’s Schwarz Group, which operates in retail through the Lidl and Kaufland brands and in waste management through PreZero, has announced that it has met the targets of its REset Plastic programme.
At the same time, it has launched the new REset Resources plan, a holistic circular-economy strategy with broader and more comprehensive packaging targets for 2030.

Introduced in 2018 and revised in 2023, REset Plastic aimed to reduce the amount of plastic used in Lidl and Kaufland private-label primary packaging by 30% by 2025. The target was exceeded, with a 36% reduction compared with 2017 volumes.

As for recycled plastic use, Lidl and Kaufland reached a 26% share of recycled material in their private-label primary plastic packaging, one percentage point above the target.

Finally, on recyclability, the two large-scale retail chains had reached a rate of 67% for their private-label primary packaging by the end of last year, falling short of the goal of making all such packaging recyclable.
The reason is attributed in part to regulatory obstacles and to the absence of a finalized measurement methodology under the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, the PPWR.
"Based on the current situation,” the German group explains with regard to the missed target, “the maximum possible level of recyclability has now been achieved while balancing product protection, material use and the use of recycled material.”

With the REset Resources programme, Schwarz Group companies aim to expand measures in the three areas already covered by the previous plan: reduction, under the REduce action area; use of recycled material, under the REcycle action area; and recyclability, under the REdesign action area. The new element compared with the previous plan is that, for the first time, the packaging targets include all types of packaging and all materials, not only plastic.

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