Cadbury’s Paper Tub: A Small Change with Big Implications

If you’re picking up a box of Cadbury Heroes this Christmas, you might notice something new.
Instead of the familiar plastic tub, some are now arriving in a fully paper-based container – the result of a trial between Mondelez International (Cadbury’s parent company) and DS Smith, one of Europe’s leading fibre-packaging specialists.

The switch is part of Mondelez’s “Pack Light and Right” strategy – a global effort to cut virgin plastic use and make packaging easier to recycle. Around 300,000 of these paper tubs are being tested in Tesco stores across the UK. The design uses recycled paper fibres and can be placed in normal household paper recycling.

It follows other moves by Mondelez, such as the Crunchie multipack redesign that removed the plastic overwrap entirely – small, visible steps in the brand’s wider shift toward more circular packaging.

Who’s behind it – and why it matters

Behind the scenes, DS Smith has become a driving force in the transition to more sustainable packaging. The company has:

Replaced or removed over one billion pieces of plastic from packaging across Europe.
Introduced Circular Design Metrics to help brands measure recyclability, material efficiency, and supply-chain impact.
Converted major manufacturing sites from fossil fuels to biomass and steam-recovery systems, cutting both energy use and emissions.

These changes show how packaging can be designed not just for shelf appeal, but for the entire lifecycle – from sourcing and production to transport and recycling.

Sustainability as smart business

While the Cadbury paper tub is all about recyclability, changes like this often create strong commercial advantages too.
Take Coca-Cola, which reduced the weight of its plastic bottles by around 8 percent. That small tweak cut thousands of tonnes of plastic each year and reduced the energy needed to make and transport bottles, reportedly saving millions each year – proving that sustainable design can also drive operational efficiency and long-term resilience.

As Cadbury’s trial shows, even a subtle change in packaging material can ripple through the supply chain.

What links these examples isn’t just a shift in materials – it’s a shift in mindset.
Looking at manufacturing and packaging through a sustainability lens encourages smarter design, less waste, and more circular use of resources. It’s about recognising that the same changes which reduce environmental impact can also cut logistics and material costs, increase efficiency, and strengthen supply resilience.

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