We have written previously about our complex relationship with packaging the food we sell so here is a breakdown of everything that we have researched and decided upon. In an ideal world we would do a life cycle analysis on every product to find out the true and final environmental impact of each but unfortunately we just don’t have time!
Ultimately we want to reduce resources (particularly plastic) consumed in the packaging process – both product packaging we create in shop and the packaging you take home as customers. In turn, we reduce the amount of virgin material required, use less energy and lower our carbon footprint 🙂
Shop Packaging
Bring Your Own
This is the cheapest and most encouraged option! Bring your own anything – bags, bottles, boxes, jars, Tupperware etc.
Glass jars, milk bottles and oil bottles
We have sourced glass jars and bottles for sale in the shop. Glass, although it consumes a lot of energy to make, it can be reused infinitely. We encourage you to buy these and reuse them over and over again!
Cotton produce bags
Ethically sourced organic cotton produce bags with Locavore branding for sale to hold things like vegetables and bread. Can be reused regularly.
Paper bags
For those times when you’ve forgotten your own containers. We recently introduced a charge for paper bags to align with our ethos of reducing resource consumption.
Veg Box Packaging
cardboard Boxes
Locavore and Soil Association branded and approved cardboard boxes are used for our veg box deliveries. We expect to get a few uses out of these so please leave them out for collection on your delivery day.
Egg cartons
Please leave these out for collection on your delivery day.
Plastic/Bioplastic Bags
We currently use plastic bags but are running down our supply and will be introducing fully compostable BioBag clear salad bags, which are made of thistles grown on non-arable land. These can be filled with food waste and thrown in your home compost heap (previous versions were unable to break down in non-commercial heaps). Until these are introduced you can clean and return the plastic bags to us or reuse them at home.
Milk Bottles
Our milk supplier Mossgiel Farm has recently changed over to glass from plastic. We very much encourage you to leave your bottles out for collection on delivery day – we have to pay a deposit on the glass bottles, so the more bottles returned, the lower we’re able to keep the price. Please be sure to give your empty bottle a rinse before passing it back to us.
Packaging from Our Suppliers
Greencity and Suma
We have worked closely with our biggest suppliers to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill. Both Greencity and Suma have agreed to take back their pallet wrap and plastic packaging to be recycled.
By opening up a discussion with suppliers we can highlight the issues that are important to us and make changes where possible!
What Else We’re Doing to Reduce Plastic
We’ve been experimenting with plastic alternatives:
We’re selling kale (and other greens soon) loose:
Internal recycling – we recycle Tetrapaks, have installed a cardboard baler so our cardboard waste gets baled and sent (for free) to a bigger recycling company and, we regularly use Gumtree to ensure things we don’t need get given a new home.
We are regularly looking to bring in more loose/bulk/plastic free options. We recently installed a loose coffee bean dispenser and grinder and are currently sourcing loose leaf teas and dispensers.
Also check out our In Store Recycling Initiatives!