Since 2023, the Australian Marine Conservation Society and the Boomerang Alliance have been scrutinising supermarkets plastic packaging use, and pushing the biggest players in the industry to reduce their use of disposable plastic packaging.
To ensure data is comparable, the audit methodology has remained largely unchanged since 2023.
In June 2025, the survey gathering data for the 2025 audit report was sent to all four supermarkets. Supermarkets were provided with three months to complete the survey.
Woolworths and Metcash were responsive during this period, and provided data in time for inclusion in this report. In addition to this data, desktop research was conducted to ensure all relevant data was considered in this assessment. Neither ALDI nor Coles completed the audit survey in 2025. Data used to assess ALDI and Coles in this report has been gathered by volunteer shoppers, and AMCS project staff from publicly available information.
Supermarkets are assessed against the same five categories, developed with consideration of the policies and actions most likely to reduce plastic pollution – in line with the waste hierarchy. For more information on our recommendations for supermarkets, see Unwrapped 2025.
Metcash stores (such as IGA and Foodland) are independently owned and run stores, therefore some questions do not apply to Metcash and their operating structure. For this reason, the maximum score in some sections may differ depending on the supermarket. This ensures all supermarkets are assessed fairly.
The waste hierarchy.