The Anti-Packaging Revolution

Reducing or eliminating packaging is now a core design challenge. At Rocketfuel, we integrate sustainability into product design, prototyping, and manufacturing—helping brands replace wasteful materials with planet-friendly alternatives.

The global trend towards reducing – or removing – packaging is set to continue to gather momentum. We take a look at 3 business’ best plastic-free practices.

Reducing packaging is both a planetary and a commercial sustainability consideration: Besides being responsible business practice, it’s an opportunity for retailers and producers to reconnect with consumers and drive future sales. And even when packaging is unavoidable, ground-breaking materials and technologies are being developed that we may one day take for granted

1. Notpla leads the pre-cycling revolution

“We’re a team of designers and chemists, engineers and entrepreneurs. We’re hard to define, because what we’ve done hasn’t been done before,” is the dictum on the Notpla site. The sustainable packaging start-up has developed a pioneering plastic substitute – that can be consumed.

The product Notpla has designed is a strong, thin film made from seaweed and plants that can be used to create sachets – called ‘Ooho’ – containing anything from water and juice to sauces and cleaning agents. Virtually tasteless, they were named for the sound of surprise people make when they pop one in their mouths. If not consumed, they biodegrade within a matter of weeks. Talk about pre-cycling! Oohos containing sports drinks were used at the 2019 London Marathon, reducing the number of plastic bottles at the event by over 200 000.

Concerned about seaweed propagation? Don’t be. It grows up to a metre per day, doesn’t interfere with crop production, doesn’t need fresh water or chemicals and even counters the acidification of our oceans. Notpla is now working on a range of nets and sealable films in order to package a wide variety of foods that are currently wrapped almost exclusively in plastic.

2. Pick n Pay develops compostable shopping bags

South African retailer Pick n Pay has developed a biodegradable shopping bag made out of vegetable matter, including maize and potato starch, which allows it to biodegrade in six months to a year. This compared to a regular Pick n Pay plastic packet that takes 500 to 1000 years to decompose.

“The important difference is that these bags are also home compostable,” explained Suzanne Ackerman-Berman, Pick n Pay Group’s Director of Transformation, referring to the bags trialled in 2018. “They are designed to collect organic waste, such as your kitchen scraps, and will compost with the organic waste in a home compost environment.” The new bags, which resemble a normal shopper, will be rolled out in 2020.

Other South African retailers such as SPAR and Woolworths are also working on competing designs, which will appeal to environmentally conscious consumers, drive customer loyalty and put pressure on other retailers to join the trend.

3. Nude Foods and Waitrose lose the packaging and gain customers

Nude Foods is a non-GMO, plastic-free grocery store in Cape Town that sources products locally and lets consumers bring their own reusable containers to dispense food, natural cosmetics and household cleaning products out of large containers. By letting customers use their own container to weigh the products, it reduces waste and allows the Nude Foods to offer competitive prices, slowly drawing them away from larger, less environmentally conscious retailers.

Meanwhile in the UK, Waitrose, one of the country’s largest retailers, has trialled a similar system to Nude Foods in some of its flagship stores, albeit only as a section within the store that is zoned packaging-free. Not only have sales increased, but customer loyalty has surged and Waitrose plans to roll-out their ‘Unpacked’ scheme nationwide.