Tesco and ALDI ban named packaging materials, while Walmart and Ahold Delhaize steer suppliers through portfolio goals they have mostly not yet met

The documents that bind suppliers

Retailers publish packaging rules in three kinds of document: a supplier specification, a supplier code of conduct and a sustainability report. Only the first two speak to suppliers directly. Exhibit 2 lists the latest dated document of each kind that SPI found for each retailer, as at 21 October 2026.

The scope of each document matters as much as its content. Tesco’s 2026 list is titled for “Own branded and Branded” packaging, so a national brand selling into Tesco UK is inside it. Walmart’s playbook says it covers private brand and national brand packaging, but its numeric goals cover private brands only. ALDI’s guidelines cover own-brand packaging from national and international suppliers. Ahold Delhaize’s Standards of Engagement apply to “every Supplier” that sells goods or services to the group, but its packaging goals count own-brand primary packaging only.

Recycled content: one per-pack aim and four portfolio goals

Recycled content is where the retailers’ numbers look most alike and mean least alike. Tesco’s figure is a per-pack aim for suppliers. The others are group averages by weight that no single supplier can meet alone (Exhibit 3).

Tesco’s 2024 requirements ask suppliers to aim for a minimum of 30% recycled content where safe and feasible, and to use recycled content wherever safe for all materials. The document ties the level to UK law: plastic packaging with under 30% recycled content pays Plastic Packaging Tax (PR-GB-001), quoted there at GBP 217.85 per tonne from April 2024. The rate is GBP 228.82 per tonne under section 45 of the Finance Act 2021 as substituted by the Finance Act 2026. SPI has not yet confirmed whether the 2026 list (PM08) restates the 30% aim, since the list itself covers materials and formats only.

Walmart’s goals count post-consumer recycled (PCR) content only. Its playbook says PCR is preferred and asks suppliers to label recycled content with both the total percentage and the PCR percentage, which matters for any resin that blends post-industrial scrap. In FY2026 PCR rose to an estimated 12.0% of North America private-brand plastic packaging and 10.7% globally, up from 8.2% and 7.6% in FY2025 (FY2026 ESG page, 29 July 2026).

ALDI has two levels. ALDI UK’s 18 June 2024 release restates an aim to “include 50% recycled content into its plastic packaging by 2025”, while the ALDI SOUTH Group page lists 30% for own-brand plastic product packaging with no date. Published ALDI UK cases are mostly bottles: own-label soft drinks and water in England and Wales moved to 100% recycled PET, excluding cap and label, saving about 10,000 tonnes of virgin plastic a year (25 April 2024), and Specially Selected Hand Cooked crisp packs carry a minimum of 35% recycled content (18 June 2024).

Ahold Delhaize’s Standards of Engagement ask every supplier to use recycled content where packaging is needed, and its group goal is 25% of own-brand primary plastic packaging weight by 2025. The 2024 statements report 15.7%, up from 14.8% in 2023 (page 104). The Q4 2025 summary report credits more recycled plastic for the 10.9% virgin plastic cut, but gives no recycled-content share, so SPI has not yet confirmed the 2025 figure.

Recyclability: four definitions of the same word

Every retailer asks for recyclable packaging, and no two define it the same way (Exhibit 4). The differences decide whether a given pack counts.

Tesco’s 2024 requirements say all packaging must be recyclable at kerbside or at the front of larger stores, the soft plastic collection points in large UK stores. That is why Tesco can report 99% recyclable but only 87% at kerbside. SPI calculation: 99 minus 87 leaves 12 points of UK Own Brand packaging by weight that relies on a front-of-store or other route. Those packs face the most pressure as PackUK’s RAM ratings set fees (PR-GB-003).

Walmart’s playbook uses a 60% access test: a pack is recyclable only if it can be collected through an established programme available to at least 60% of the consumers or communities where it is sold. Its FY2026 report says goal progress is measured on the Ellen MacArthur Foundation definition, detailed in Walmart’s Recycling Playbook. The playbook also tells suppliers not to rely on the Resin Identification Code and chasing arrows, and prefers How2Recycle labels in the US, which carried 92% of Walmart U.S. private-brand food and consumables supplier-reported sales in 2023 (28 February 2025 page).

ALDI’s guidelines are the most technical of the four. They rate each component on a four-colour scale from best-case design to incompatible, set amber as the floor for acceptance and give an acceptance table by operating country. They count only mechanical recycling, so chemically recycled routes and composting do not make a pack recyclable under the guidelines. Version 4.0 also prepares for the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) grades A to C under PR-EU-010.

Ahold Delhaize’s goal is the narrowest: plastic only, own-brand primary only, and “in practice and at scale”. Its 2024 result was 33%, up from 28% in 2023 (page 104), against 100% for 2025. SPI has not yet confirmed a 2025 figure.

Material bans: where the lists diverge

Material bans are the sharpest tool a retailer has, because they need no measurement: a pack either contains the material or it does not. Exhibit 6 sets out what each retailer prohibits or restricts, by name.

Tesco’s red list is the longest. The 2024 edition (PM06, coded 010124) prohibits nine formats, from rigid black plastic, hi and mid cones, plastic straws and cutlery, glitter, composite drums and decorative aluminium laminates to paper or board laminated on both sides, and eight materials: compostable, PLA and biodegradable plastics, oxo-degradable plastics, polystyrene, PVC, PVdC, water-soluble plastics, MDF and waxed or siliconised paper. The 2026 edition (PM08) opens with the same items, adds packaging with batteries and replaces the 10% plastic-lamination limit for paper and board with a 15% non-paper content limit, defined as non-separable under EPR RAM. It marks six items as new, including fibre-based composites, shrink sleeves, RFID tagging on plastic and components under 40mm by 40mm; SPI has not yet confirmed the colour assigned to each of the six. Amber items, such as complex laminates, barrier papers, bio-based polymers and masterbatch containing carbon black, need approval from Tesco’s packaging team.

ALDI’s guidelines treat most of the same materials as incompatible with recycling. They say “ALDI does not accept the use of oxo-degradable or oxo-biodegradable materials in packaging”, list PVC as not compatible and strictly to be avoided, treat carbon black as obstructive, and describe PVDC as not compatible in PE and PP formats. Polystyrene is accepted in some countries only.

Walmart’s playbook names PVC, black plastic and biodegradable additives in petroleum-based plastics, plus priority chemicals, and asks for closures that match the parent material or separate easily. Ahold Delhaize’s code names no material: its packaging clause asks suppliers to eliminate unnecessary plastic, reduce plastic, use recycled content and design for local recycling.

Reduction: virgin plastic, total plastic or no number at all

Reduction targets are where the retailers’ baselines and units differ most (Exhibit 7). Two count virgin plastic against a base year, one counts plastic packaging, ALDI SOUTH Group counts all material relative to sales, and Tesco now counts pieces and tonnes in case studies only.

Ahold Delhaize is the only one of the four with a met 2025 packaging goal that SPI has confirmed: virgin plastic in own-brand primary packaging was 10.9% below 2021 in 2025, against 5%, after 10.3% in 2024. Walmart moved the other way: private-brand virgin plastic was 4.12% above its FY2021 baseline in FY2026, against a goal of 15% below. Walmart notes that virgin plastic intensity per net sales dollar has fallen over three years, so the absolute rise reflects growth.

Tesco’s reduction now runs case by case. The Sustainability Report 2026 cites over 18 million pieces of plastic removed from pre-packed avocados, almost five million from Finest and Organic berries, a trial of about 300,000 Cadbury Heroes paper tubs with Mondelez in October 2025, and Booker’s Farm Fresh mushrooms moved to cardboard trays, forecast to save over 280 tonnes of plastic a year (page 24). Tesco also chairs the Reuse Packaging Partnership of nine grocers, whose Statement of Intent of July 2025 invites suppliers to work on reuse aimed at reducing single-use packaging by 2030.

Reporting: the data each retailer wants

Reporting is the lever suppliers feel first, because it arrives as a form with a deadline. Exhibit 8 shows what each retailer asks for and where it goes.

Tesco’s data rule is the most direct. Both the 2024 and 2026 lists state that packaging data must be provided to Valpak, and the 2024 document lists what it feeds: EPR payments, Plastic Packaging Tax payment and assurance, deposit return details, PRN payments and change tracking. The Central Europe version, valid from August 2024 and published in Czech, Hungarian and English, asks Own Brand suppliers for data to meet EPR obligations and for drink product details for deposit operators in Hungary and Slovakia.

Walmart collects packaging weights through its survey or compliance system and fills gaps with proxy estimates based on survey participation as a share of private-brand net sales (FY2026 report, page 9). How2Recycle data are not based on proxies. The playbook adds a softer ask: set goals, report progress publicly and quantify impact reductions.

A framework: rule strength by lever

Exhibit 1 is SPI’s organising device for this piece. It sorts each retailer’s ask on each of the five levers into one of four bands by the wording of the retailer’s own document: a rule (must, prohibited, not accepted, strictly to be avoided), guidance (aim, urge, prefer, recommend), a portfolio goal (the retailer’s own target, with no per-supplier ask), or none found.

Read across, the grid gives four retailer profiles. Tesco is a list enforcer: hard rules on recyclability, materials and data, and no numeric voluntary targets since the 2026 report. ALDI is a design-guideline setter: a technical rating scheme shared across ALDI Nord and ALDI SOUTH countries, with the highest recycled-content goal of the four (50% at ALDI UK) and the least published reporting. Walmart is a portfolio measurer: aggregate goals, a supplier survey and a playbook of preferences. Ahold Delhaize is a principles setter: a code that urges four steps, with portfolio goals for own-brand plastic.

The framework also shows a timeline effect (Exhibit 9). Most of the portfolio goals were set between 2019 and 2021 and fell due in 2025, while the supplier specifications have been updated since: Tesco in 2024 and 2026, ALDI in May 2022 and each April from 2023 to 2025, and Ahold Delhaize’s code from 1 January 2026.

Scenarios: what the asks mean in tonnes

Because the retailers’ recycled-content levels range from 20% to 50%, the same supplier faces very different resin bills depending on the customer. Exhibit 10 sizes the gap for a simple case, in tonnes, with no currency.

The base case shows the spread. A range at 10% recycled content is 100 tonnes short of Walmart’s North America level and 400 tonnes short of ALDI UK’s. In the UK there is a second line in sterling only. SPI calculation: if the same 1,000 tonnes were UK-made or imported components below 30% recycled plastic, Plastic Packaging Tax at GBP 228.82 per tonne would be GBP 228,820 a year in each of the three starting cases, and GBP 0 once every component reaches 30% (PR-GB-001). That cliff, not the retailer’s guidance, is what makes 30% the working floor for UK packs.

Exhibit 11 asks a different question: at the pace each retailer last reported, how long until its own goal is reached?

In the base case, Walmart’s PCR goals would be reached around FY2028 if the FY2026 gains of 3.8 and 3.1 points held. Ahold Delhaize’s recycled-content goal would take about 10.3 years from 2024 at the 0.9-point gain of 2023 to 2024, and its plastic recyclability goal about 13.4 years at a 5-point gain. In the low case nothing moves; in the high case each goal is reached, which for the 2025 goals has not happened on any figure SPI has confirmed. SPI analysis: law will close part of the gap faster than these paces. The PPWR sets 30% recycled content for single-use plastic beverage bottles from 2030 (PR-EU-004), and California’s standard for redemption-value plastic bottles stepped to 25% in 2025 and reaches 50% in 2030 (PR-US-009).

Where the law now does the retailers' job

Tesco’s 2026 report says outright that it is retiring voluntary packaging targets because EPR and deposit return legislation now apply. Exhibit 12 maps each lever to the statutory rule that now overlaps it in the markets these retailers serve, from the SPI Regulation Tracker.

The overlap changes what a retailer rule is for. In the UK, Tesco’s red list and Valpak data feed PackUK fees and Plastic Packaging Tax; the list is now partly a cost control. In the EU, where Tesco Central Europe and Ahold Delhaize’s European brands trade and Tesco Ireland and ALDI Ireland sell, the PPWR has applied since 12 August 2026, and ALDI’s guidelines already write in its grades. In the US, Walmart’s and Ahold Delhaize’s banners face state EPR and recycled-content laws that set per-container floors the retailers’ portfolio goals never did. For the EU detail see the PPWR after August 2026, and for recycled content against legal floors see the recycled-content pledge gap. The SPI Packaging Buyers Database holds 179 packaging targets from 42 companies, including these four retailers’ profiles.

The gaps in this comparison

Unpublished results. SPI has not yet confirmed Ahold Delhaize’s 2025 recycled-content and recyclability results, ALDI UK’s outcomes for its 2025 goals, or a plastic footprint for ALDI UK after 2023. Tesco publishes no recycled-content figure for its Own Brand packaging.

Colour coding. SPI read Tesco’s 2026 list from its published layout; the colour of six items marked as new is not yet confirmed. Walmart’s playbook is undated, so SPI treats it as current guidance only where the FY2026 report still points to the Recycling Playbook.

Scope. Tesco’s recyclability figures are UK only; Central Europe metrics are not reported. Walmart’s and Ahold Delhaize’s goals cover private and own brands only. ALDI’s group goals and guidelines are shared across countries; ALDI UK’s own goals are stated in press releases.