The world's largest confectionery companies are testing paper-based packaging alternatives as their voluntary plastic reduction targets prove harder to hit than anticipated - and as EU regulation begins to close off the easier exits. Progress is real but uneven, and the gap between announced ambition and operational execution is wide enough to drive a pallet truck through.
Plastic Targets Exposed a Structural Problem
Mars, Mondelez International, Ferrero and Nestlé have all struggled to reduce their dependence on virgin plastic, according to 2024 data published by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. The numbers are stark. Flexible plastics account for 49% of Mars' packaging mix, 68% of Mondelez's and 25% of Ferrero's. These are not easy materials to eliminate - they are cheap, functional, and deeply embedded in high-speed production lines designed around them.
The specific problem with flexible plastics is circular. Post-consumer recycled content from polyethylene and polypropylene film is genuinely difficult to reintroduce into food-grade applications. Collection is limited, contamination runs high, and food-safety regulation is strict. Ferrero managed 5.8% recycled content, Mars 7%, and Nestlé 14.7%, per the same EMF data. Mondelez, which reported an 11.5% reduction in virgin plastic use against a 5% target, achieved post-consumer recycled content of just 3.7%.
Here's the catch: these companies have also moved the goalposts. Mondelez now aims to hit its recyclability, recycled content, and virgin rigid plastic reduction goals by 2030, having cited regulatory flux, supply chain complexity, and slower-than-expected circular system development. That's a defensible position - but it buys time, not solutions.
Paper Is Gaining Ground, With Conditions Attached
Packaging producer Coveris made an announcement in April that illustrates where the industry is heading. A new wrapper material - 95% paper, no more than 5% plastic - can be used as primary packaging for twisted candies, chocolate pralines, lollipops and heat-sealed flow-pack chocolate bars. It runs on existing form-fill-seal lines without major machinery modifications, is compatible with digital printing, and qualifies as recyclable under the EU's packaging and packaging waste regulation (PPWR), which enforces a 95/5 paper-to-plastic ratio for paper-stream recyclability.
That regulatory threshold matters. Extended producer responsibility fees under PPWR, due to apply from 2030, will be calibrated in part around recyclability - creating a financial incentive, not just a reputational one, to bring packaging into compliance. Packaging that qualifies for the paper recycling stream could carry meaningfully lower EPR costs than flexible plastic that ends up landfilled or incinerated. For high-volume confectionery producers running billions of SKUs annually, even marginal per-unit differences in EPR fees aggregate into significant budget lines.
Amcor has taken a similar step in the retail-ready space, partnering with French organic snack brand Alter Eco on a recyclable, paper-based reduced-weight wrapper for a 200g chocolate range. The packaging handles water vapour and grease barrier requirements and can be recycled through the paper stream in France. "With the right barrier performance, paper can deliver the protection needed for demanding applications like chocolate," Amcor senior product development engineer Janice Narainsamy said in connection with the launch.
The EMF, in a report endorsed by Mars, PepsiCo, Nestlé, WWF and Canopy, concluded that paper "could play a valuable role in tackling plastic pollution." Flexible plastic packaging accounts for roughly 80% of plastic packaging entering oceans, concentrated heavily in markets - India, Indonesia and others - where collection infrastructure is weak. Paper isn't a universal fix, but for single-serve and small-format confectionery, it represents a credible partial substitution.
The Paper Route Has Its Own Risks
Nicole Rycroft, executive director of not-for-profit Canopy, puts the concern plainly: brands must resist jumping from the plastics frying pan into a paper fire. That warning is earned. Earlier rounds of plastic substitution often swapped one unrecyclable material for another with better optics - paper-laminated pouches with plastic barriers are a familiar example. Consumer perception of paper as inherently sustainable remains well ahead of the actual recyclability of many paper-plus-something formats.
Nestlé's own sustainability reporting flags the risk explicitly, noting that the transition to paper-based packaging "requires a rigorous early assessment to avoid unintended environmental or social consequences," with particular concern around deforestation and supply chain origin shifts. The company sources 318 billion pieces of packaging annually across all materials - the sourcing footprint at that scale is not a minor supply-chain detail.
FSC certification is one floor-level requirement, not a complete answer. Tightening regulation - including the EU Deforestation Regulation and new rules governing green claims - is closing down the space for vague sustainability messaging. Brands that promote paper packaging as environmentally responsible without verified sourcing and genuinely recyclable formats are accumulating regulatory and reputational exposure, not managing it.
Mars itself sells Mars and Snickers bars in paper-based packaging in Australia and New Zealand - but the New Zealand packaging cannot currently be recycled there due to infrastructure gaps and revised technical guidelines. That's not a small detail to communicate to consumers who bought the product partly on the basis of its packaging.
External Pressure Is Accelerating the Timeline
Cost has historically kept flexible plastic dominant despite its recycling problems. Paper-based alternatives, especially engineered barrier formats, carry a price premium. That calculus is shifting. Polyethylene and polypropylene prices hit four-year highs following disruptions to oil and petrochemical flows through the Strait of Hormuz, according to Reuters. European plastics recyclers were already under cost pressure before the supply disruption; the combination is pushing some brands toward alternatives they might have deferred.
Meanwhile, the industrial recycling route for flexible plastics is inching forward. Coveris and Nextek announced the start of industrial-scale trials in Lincolnshire, converting post-consumer polyolefin film into high-quality recycled resin. The process, which Nextek founder Edward Kosior said technologists had told him "could not be done," follows three years of R&D. It will take a further two years to generate the data European regulators need to approve the output for food-grade applications.
That timeline tells you something about where the industry actually stands. Paper-based solutions can be deployed now, on existing equipment, within current regulatory frameworks. A viable closed-loop system for food-grade flexible plastic recycling is, at best, five to seven years from meaningful scale. For companies staring down EPR fee structures, green claims compliance, and investor ESG scrutiny simultaneously, that is a long time to wait.
