burberry burns bags, clothes and perfume worth £28million to stop it being sold cheaply

its been revealed that burberry has set fire to more than £28 million worth of its products over the past year in a bid to stop people from getting their hands on the brand’s clothes and counterfeiting them. as well as bags and clothes, the luxury british brand burnt £10.4 million of beauty items, according to detail in its annual report.

images © burberry

destroying products is common practice for the industry, who want to protect intellectual property. luxury brands including chanel and louis vuitton also burn or destroy unsold stock. according to the evening standard, richemont, the owner of cartier and montblanc, destroyed more than £400 million of watches over a two-year period after an excess in goods in the asian markets.

critics of these methods have called out the luxury fashion brand, questioning why the company doesn’t donate the clothes to charity. amid these criticisms burberry’s defence is that the energy generated from burning its products was captured, making it environmentally friendly.