We’ve just launched recyclable inner lining packaging. We wanted to share the reason we've made this decision and the process we've taken to get here...
We made the decision in late 2019 to switch out our plastic internal packaging for our granolas to a fully home compostable version. It was both the easiest and the hardest decision to make. Easiest as it was clearly (at the time) the right thing to do. Hardest because our new packaging was going to cost us around 8x more than previously. When every penny counts as a challenger brand that is a very BIG decision.
That said, we did it because it was the right thing to do. Tough decisions normally become easy when you fall back on your values. One of ours is sustainability.
So we went for a fully home-compostable bag that you could put on your home compost heap with no issue - no industrial facilities (that do not really exist to a meaningful extent in this country) needed!
But this change for the better from an environmental perspective did not come without issues. The home compostable bag was structurally weaker and did not fully serve the purposes of best preserving our cereals for optimum enjoyment. This defeated the point of trying to use a less environmentally damaging product, as wastage was increasing, which represented a much larger potential environmental impact.
Luckily, things are constantly and rapidly evolving in the packaging space. Fully recyclable bags appear to be making the most headway. They are structurally much more sound than home compostable bags, resulting in considerably lower food wastage.
We are now fully recyclable across all of the packaging used in our range but we won’t be stopping here. We are always be looking for the most sustainable packaging solution for our products and first and foremost providing everyone with a great quality, healthy and tasty breakfast.
KEEPING ACCOUNTABLE FOR CARBON
We've taken a small step to lowering our carbon emissions, by joining the Carbon Capture Programme - which has provided us with the ability to capture the CO2 emissions from our cardboard purchases (aka our granola outer boxes) by planting native woodland, right here in the UK, through the Woodland Trust and the Woodland Carbon scheme.
We will continue to work on lowering our emissions throughout our supply chain and if you can recycle your Spoon packs and send it back into the system then together we can make a difference.