Are you exploring alternatives to your packaging?

Our choice to use plastic containers is not one we’ve taken lightly. We’ve done a lot of work to make sure that we’re safely delivering fresh and delicious plant-forward meals while minimizing our environmental footprint as much as possible.

After extensive research and testing, for the immediate future we made the tough choice to use recyclable plastic containers (made with recycled PET content) for several reasons in service of our mission to help more people eat more plants. 

Meal longevity

First, plastic provides an excellent barrier against moisture and air, which preserves the freshness and quality of our meals during transport and storage at home over several days better than any other container we tested. This ensures that your salads and other fresh meals arrive and stay crisp and flavorful, just as they were prepared.

Second, while we understand the potential appeal of compostable containers, there are a number of concerns. The overall environmental impact of compostable materials can vary widely, and only a small fraction of people have access to industrial composting facilities that accept these containers (they otherwise end up in landfill or contaminating recycling streams). And even when these facilities are available, a review by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality found that of 360+ comparisons of food packaging materials, making and using compostable containers (and composting them) actually resulted in higher environmental impacts than using non-compostable materials. From a quality perspective, we've found through testing that they can become soggy over time, compromising the quality, safety, and shelf life of our meals (leading to more food waste).

Food waste vs. packaging

Lastly, food waste is a huge issue, and an environmental tradeoff often exists between food packaging and waste. The global food system emits around one-third of total annual greenhouse gas emissions, and food waste drives a huge portion of this: up to half, according to one study. By contrast, packaging contributes some 5% to food system emissions overall, and for individual food items, packaging is generally a very small portion of emissions. In the case of cucumbers, a study found that its packaging only accounted for 1% of the total environmental footprint, and that each cucumber wasted due to spoilage would have the same climate impact as the amount of plastic used to wrap 93 cucumbers. The environmental benefit of reducing food waste due to plastic wrapping the cucumbers was 4.9 times higher than the negative environmental impact due to the packaging itself. Within our own testing, we’ve found that our containers give our meals a longer shelf life compared to alternatives, resulting in less spoilage and waste.

The power of plant-based

Our #1 goal is to transform individual health and planetary health through the power of plants.  Plant-based diets have been found to have a 75% lower carbon footprint, with 75% less land use, 54% less water use, 66% less water pollution, and 66% less biodiversity loss than diets that contain a modest amount of meat — which is why why scientists say avoiding meat and dairy is the single most impactful way to reduce your overall impact on the planet. 

We know plastic is a challenge that we must address and we are fully committed to continuing to test alternatives on an iterative basis and reduce our environmental footprint. For example, last year we tested thousands of 100% post consumer recycled containers sent to hundreds of customers in the Pacific Northwest, but unfortunately the brittleness of those containers led to breakage and spoilage. We are in active conversations  with suppliers and we hope to repeat the test with sturdier containers as soon as we can. We will continue to explore alternatives and will share any successes with you.

Thank you once again for your understanding and support of our mission.