Food safety and operational practicality are often the biggest barriers to finding sustainable packaging solutions. What are the main challenges and how are businesses overcoming these?
In this discussion at the Better Hospitality Conference, we looked at the challenges presented by wholesale transportation, manufactured food products and takeaway meals. Then we discussed a wide range of potential solutions, from innovative materials and creative collaborative partnerships to changing consumer behaviour altogether.
Together, the panel covered a wide range of experience and expertise in this field. Michael Tingsager, founder of Pulse Kitchen, which packages pre-made products for the hospitality industry and the end consumer. Paul Gilligan is the founder and CEO of Magical Mushroom Company® which manufactures biodegradable sustainable packaging. Nicolette Millward is an Account Director at Restaurant Associates and is working with her corporate client to reduce disposables and promote the use of reusable packaging.
Chairing the panel, Domini Hogg, founder of Tried and Supplied, asked Paul Gilligan, CEO of Magical Mushroom Company®, to describe how his company has developed a natural alternative to polystyrene.
Packaging for wholesale transportation – magical mushrooms
Paul’s company uses mushrooms as the basis for manufacturing a biodegradable packaging material as an alternative to polystyrene. Mushrooms are the ‘fruit’ of a giant underground ‘tree’, a Mycelium. Mycelium is made of Chitin, a natural glue which is water resistant and flame retardant.
The Mushroom® Packaging is made from a mix of Mycelium and natural agricultural bi-products from farms close to the company’s facilities (in 98% of products this is the woody core of hemp).
Because Mushroom® Packaging is biodegradable in around 45 days there’s concern that it’s not suitable for shipping long distances but, in fact, kept dry, it has a shelf life of up to 30 years.
Price is an issue
Paul explains, “any solution has to take price out of the equation. The bonus is the sustainability.” Michael Tingsager agrees – but said this presented a problem. For companies such as Pulse Kitchen, he says, “the difficulty is that there are only a few manufacturers who might produce something the way you want it. Therefore, the price is high. And it’s already high when you are using a sustainable material. But the majority of the food service sector doesn’t want to pay more for that sustainable material.”
“We’ve noticed that when we’ve experimented with different packaging (which increases the cost of the product) revenue has dropped significantly.”
“Yes”, Paul agrees, “clients are extremely price-sensitive and they don’t want to experiment.”
Involve the client finance function
“It’s important when you are selling wholesale to involve the finance function right from the start,” Paul advises. “We’ve had many projects which have got through lots of validation and have the full support of the sustainability teams, and just when we are about to go to production the CFO would step in and cancel the order, purely on the basis of cost – ‘we don’t need this’ they’ll say.”
“We need to educate these finance people to consider these solutions as investments rather than costs.”
“And everyone involved from investors through to the end user has to be convinced that the product really works. Now we’re producing a new fish box. It needs to be able to keep fish cold for 11 days. The challenge has been to find people with the right engineering knowledge to be able to help develop this product, and then automate the manufacture of it.”
The importance of volume in gaining investment and keeping down the price
Michael comments that when it came to manufacturing there was nothing that trumped volume – it made all the difference in terms of attracting investment, being able to offer competitive pricing, and much else. There were difficulties in changing production lines but solving these was all part of moving into phase two of the development of a business.
Paul has similar experience. “We were also lucky enough last year to be awarded a £1.1m Innovate UK loan to help fund the opening of a materials plant here. Trials were essential – if you’re about to manufacture four million items, you have to get everything right first.”
“I think there are two other things which help get a company with new solutions get off the ground.”
So to get a wholesale packaging company off the ground you need:
· Volume [as described above]
· You also need to have good price information. You need to know what you have to match.
· Trials are a good idea! If you’re looking at a product run of four million pieces, it has to be clear that the machinery is going to work.
· And finally, it’s the leadership behind it – it takes courage, you need to take risks and persuade others to, too. Michael concurs – “yes, and the large investors are particularly risk averse.”
Takeaway packaging solutions
Another panel member, Nicolette Millward, works for Restaurant Associates, Compass Group. She is currently managing the hospitality services of a large financial institution. She reports that it’s packaging for the wet and hot which presents a challenge for them.
Reusable cups and bowls – digital innovation to promote sustainable behaviour
Nevertheless, they do as much as they can to reduce the use of unsustainable packaging and containers. “It’s all about changing mindsets, but we already have a very proactive client – they’re based in Canary Wharf. We’re using a young start-up company, Cauli, which provides an AI-powered reuse system for foodservice companies to provide trackable reusable cups and bowls. We encourage their use by making them free if they are returned within a certain time. However, people have to use an app to participate – and we soon discovered that people don’t like using apps, they’re time-short and sometimes they just view it as an inconvenience! It is understandable, in order to just have their lunch they have to download the app and get the box back to the collection point. Some customers got quite frustrated about having to do all this. The team at Cauli have been very proactive and have developed a Tap&Go system that allows users to borrow trackable reusable containers with just a swipe of a payment card or digital wallet, which will help tackle these challenges and improve adaptability. Digital innovation in this space has enabled sustainable systems to become increasingly convenient and accessible.
It’s taken a lot of communication effort to make users understand why they are using CauliBox, but implementing its use in stages definitely helped the process. From a practical point of view it took a lot of discussion to agree how to manage the collection of these reusable containers.”
Even reusable containers made from unsustainable materials can be better than disposable containers made from unsustainable materials
The panel all report that it is difficult to persuade people to go down the reusable route initially. Michael says many people are unaware that you can reuse foil containers.
On the other hand, Paul says he knows a charity who have been using combustible containers, but these containers cost more and they were never properly disposed of. So they went back to using plastic containers – this wasn’t a sustainable material but at least it was used more than once.
Nicolette confirms that risk aversion, as with wholesale packaging, is a problem as well for consumers. “You need to consider how much adverse noise the proposed initiative is likely to make. Then you need to organise some dedicated marketing to mitigate the noise.”
“We make sure every individual involved gets the reward of knowing what they have personally achieved – it’s not just ‘work’ data. We make sure they don’t get sent loads of spam.”
Legislation
Domini asks the panel if, in their opinion, legislation can help push the change of behaviour needed to ensure more widespread use of sustainable packaging.
Nicolette replies enthusiastically, “legislation can majorly drive these things. Look at the effect the EU single-use plastics ban had; and now, post-Brexit, a lot of our UK clients have dropped their plans to ban single-use plastic.”
“Really, our biggest problem is the management of waste product,” she continues. Often people put the wrong thing into the wrong container – that means that nothing in that container can be recycled. Clear signage is essential.”
Paul agrees that there is a lot of confusion regarding the definition of waste categories – for example that bio-degradable does not mean compostable
Nicolette adds, “we don’t have any control over how the waste is dealt with once it leaves our facilities; we know a lot of it is simply consolidated. The UK government needs to get its act together on this because a lot of recyclable waste is not actually recycled. At least with the reusable containers we have control.”
Final advice
For those embarking on the introduction of sustainable packaging the panel gave this encouragement: don’t accept the status quo, be brave, have solutions to hand in your back pocket.
Paul summarises the discussion very neatly by concluding, “you have to make it easy for people to use these solutions.”
Comments