Rethinking the way your business approaches takeaway packaging can greatly benefit the environment.
Easter eggs are big business. With around 80 million Easter eggs sold every year, that’s a lot of chocolate and a lot of packaging too. But retailers have been able to dramatically reduce their environmental impact in one of the simplest ways imaginable — getting rid of plastic packaging.
By removing the plastic windows from their Easter eggs packaging, Mondelēz International (the US company that owns Cadbury) removed 5.4 tonnes of plastic from the environment. Opting for open windows and sticking to a paper and cardboard construction, recycling Easter egg packaging was made even easier for their customers. Yet, the overall effectiveness of the packaging wasn’t reduced. It still protected the delicate chocolate eggs during transit and still showcased its products enough for millions of people to buy them — a win-win.
So how else can food and confectionary businesses make their packaging more sustainable without compromising on quality?
What Are the Best Sustainable Packaging Strategies?
If you’re looking for eco-friendly packaging ideas for food, drinks and more, there are plenty of ways you can start helping to protect the planet while effectively marketing your products straight away:
- Eliminate the Use of Harmful Packaging Materials
First things first, if you’re using non-recyclable or non-biodegradable packaging, your business’s products will harm the environment. Plastic is incredibly harmful to the planet because it doesn’t naturally degrade. Even when it eventually does start to decompose — which often takes hundreds of years — it leaks harmful chemicals back into the atmosphere.
Minimising the use of these packaging materials or eliminating them entirely should be your top priority to reduce your company’s carbon footprint. Global retailers have upped their game and proven that environmentally safe packaging can be effective, so if you’re going to have a chance of competing in supermarkets, shops and online, it might be time to up your game too.
- Minimise the Packaging You Use
If you’re striving to be an eco-friendly business, one of the easiest ways to reduce your environmental impact is by reducing the amount of packaging you use. Not only will this help your business save money on packaging supplies, but it’ll also reduce the amount of packaging that needs to be recycled or disposed of.
Think about the size of each piece of packaging you use, how customers interact with your brand and how each aspect of your vending could be improved. Maybe your burger containers don’t need to be so big, or perhaps your customers don’t always need extra cutlery, so it’s worth reviewing these aspects to incrementally reduce wastage, save money and preserve the planet’s finite resources.
- Implement Eco-friendly Packaging Solutions
Swapping out harmful materials for ecological packaging is crucial in your journey to becoming a more eco-friendly business, but what should you use to package your products? Besides, aren’t eco-friendly alternatives really expensive?
Biodegradable packaging from bagasse bowls to biodegradable cups boast many of the same qualities as plastic without the environmentally damaging drawbacks. Plus, your initial investment pales into insignificance when you consider the long-term benefits of using ecologically friendly materials.
Going green can help you get ahead of your competitors because, as more plastic bans are introduced, more companies will need to make the switch to greener packaging, inevitably paying a higher price as they enter the eco-friendly market much later. Plus, you’ll be able to establish better relationships with the ever-growing market of eco-conscious consumers, so you’ll no doubt see a return on your investment within a short time frame.
Sustainable Packaging Strategies for Food Businesses
The most recent innovations in eco-friendly food packaging have provided businesses of all sizes with fantastic opportunities to make their operations more ecological without compromising on the quality of their products. Sustainable packaging materials made from avocado seeds and ever-dependable paper-based packaging are putting an end to plastic, and not a minute too soon.
These innovative packaging solutions tell a hopeful story about how sustainable packaging can benefit the economy and the environment, and now your business can be a part of that story too!
Looking for a better packaging solution for your takeaway food and drinks? Discover our online shop, where you’ll find epic ecological packaging solutions that won’t damage the environment.
