recipe boxes - all that waste!

[simonineaston]

At the food share project, we handle food in larger quantities than a typical shopper. We get deliveries from bakers, super-markets, wholesalers etc.. For example the pot noodles turn up in the sort of bulk bags normally used for aggregate! A new trend is box fulls of short-dated ingredients that had been destined for the new-fangled 'recipe boxes'. Although the idea of receiving a delivery to your door of all that you need to cook something special may be tempting, for a certain demographic, the extent of the waste packaging is truly mind-boggling! Every single ingredient comes in its own packet - sometimes recyclable cardboard, but more frequently in single use plastic container or sachets...

loads and loads of plastic wrappers

egg-in-a-box

Although it's great we can save as much as poss. from a lonely, chilly end up in the land-fill site, it's quite an eye-opener to see all this bloomin' packaging in bulk form and it's hard not to think of it as a bit of a recycling disaster. I wonder if the companies concerned had to make a case for the way they thought customers would handle the packaging - or perhaps there's simply no regulation other than customer preferences.

[Psamathe]

... Every single ingredient comes in its own packet - sometimes recyclable cardboard, but more frequently in single use plastic container...

(My bold and colour)
Maybe a bit off-topic but I have a real "thing" about UK wrapping cucumbers in plastic. To the point where I have e-mailed supermarkets on more than one occasion about this. France, Netherlands, etc. all seem to survive without wrapping their cucumbers in plastic so why not the UK? As a single issue hardly the biggest threat to mankind but an indication about how little the supermarkets actually care about reducing packaging.

Everytime I e-mail I do get a response - a cut and past about how they are committed to reduction of everything wrong in the world ... and nothing ever happens.

I now have to buy apples in a single use plastic wrap that contains 6 apples. Can't by 5 or 7 apples (not a big deal) but the single use plastic sealed bag is an issue.

Ian

[simonineaston]

Some supermarkets have dabbled in going back to fruit & veg in paper bags, but it's lip-service, I'm afraid. Their absolute obsession is shelf-life and any packaging that doesn't help that end is destined for failure...

[Jdsk]

How about a bit of direct action?

Strip the packaging off just after the supermarket checkout and dispose of it neatly but loudly. Best done with some like-minded allies.

A photographer and reporter wouldn't hurt.

(This is not an original thought.)

...

What would be an appropriate equivalent for those recipe boxes?

Jonathan

[Psamathe]

Isn't there some law in Germany (or some EU countries) that oblige supermarkets to take back unnecessary packaging customers return? Or something along such lines.

Ian

[Psamathe]

In a Sainsbury a few months back and they were not providing those thin bags for lose veg, only the reusable ones you have to buy. Totally daft (in my opinion) and just a way to make money as the lose veg thing bag things are mostly compostable and not plastic these days.

Ian

[Jdsk]

Isn't there some law in Germany (or some EU countries) that oblige supermarkets to take back unnecessary packaging customers return? Or something along such lines.

The 2022 updated requirements:
https://www.ecosistant.eu/en/german-packaging-act-2022/

Jonathan

[simonineaston]

Forget supermarkets - they're waaaay better at packaging than these recipe boxes, which are a new idea. Recipe boxes are a subscription delivery service, from the likes of Gousto, Hello Fresh, Mindful (hahaha) Chef). The food in the recipe boxes comes individually wrapped - you can see the single egg and the 2 cloves of garlic and the single teaspoon of smoked paprika in the photos - madness!!

[Cugel]

We're lucky enough out here in 1950s-land (West Wales) to have olde fashioned foodstuff sellers who don't wrap anything much in anything much. The wet fish and meat sometimes have a bit of greaseproof paper 'round them but even they can be put in your own reusable containers. They're sold by small sellers - butchers, bakers and .... the fruit&veg lady.

The fruit and veg is all loose and put into a weekly wood or carboard box for collection after a phone order is made. We pick ours up on the way back frm the daily dog walk in the forest. It's sold from an open air stall in a market square. The boxes are what the wholesale fruit & veg comes in to the seller and they're returned each week so get dozens of uses before becoming too dilapidated. Much of the stuff is locally grown although not the oranges and avocados etc..

The fish comes with Len the Fish in his van, to the door. The bread is baked by three local bakeries (all different styles) and at most has a sheet of tissue paper 'round each loaf, which you can take back for reuse over several loaf purchases. The butcher is a proper 'un who can tell you where everything comes from and sells mostly local free range and traditional stuff unpolluted by gallons of antibiotics, hormones and nasty feedstuffs from gawd-knows where.

********
I realise that many are stuck with supermarkets, who are sinners of many sins when it comes to food quality and the associated packaging. When I'm dictator they'll all be closed in favour of 73 small shops per supermarket, spread around the place and offering delivery services via cargobike.

Cugel

[PedallingSquares]

Recipe boxes are a subscription delivery service, from the likes of Gousto, Hello Fresh, Mindful (hahaha) Chef). The food in the recipe boxes comes individually wrapped - you can see the single egg and the 2 cloves of garlic and the single teaspoon of smoked paprika in the photos - madness!!

There will be plenty of people who buy them would disagree.
Do people really care about trivial stuff like this?I really don't!Our food comes what it comes in and I don't give it a second thought.
There are much more important things to worry about

[mumbojumbo]

Recipe boxes-an absolute waste .In the past peasants ploughed and prayed to glean food to cook. Now people find it too challenging to

1walk to and within a shop
2.carry food in a bag
3. read a book
All these tasks are requiring skill, enterprise and courage ,particularly if tins have to be opened, eggs cracked and gas lit.

So convenient to use a nice disposable kit.

[Mick F]

Said it before on many occasion, socially, and on here too no doubt ............. when I was a kid, we had ONE galvanised bin outside the back door. Four of us in a three-bedroom semi with two coal fires.

The bin was collected from our back door, taken by the bin-men once a week, emptied into their lorry, and the bin returned to the back door.

ONCE a week.
ONE bin, two coal fires, family of four people.

Our kitchen bin these days tends to be full of plastic non-recyleable plastic wrapping.
Plastic recyclable bottles go out, but the non-recycleable goes in a black plastic bin-bag.

Why do we have all this plastic?
Why do we need cucumber and swede wrapped in plastic?

We've been married nigh-on 50years, and it never used to be like this.

[Bsteel]

But do the boxes have some merit if they start a family on the path to transition from surviving on ready meals and take away food. To trying to cook something from scratch. Not everyone has cupboards full of the incidental spices and ingredients needed for cooking, so a box that has everything they need without having to go and stock up from zero may have some merit even if it comes with questionable packaging.

[Mick F]

On R4 the other day, they were talking about frozen food.
The chap being interviewed was saying the frozen broccoli is FAR cheaper than fresh from the greengrocer.

Frozen veg tastes horrible in our opinions.
What the heck do they do to peas, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower etc to make it so horrible?

Fresh veg every time for us.

[axel_knutt]

A new trend is box fulls of short-dated ingredients that had been destined for the new-fangled 'recipe boxes'. Although the idea of receiving a delivery to your door of all that you need to cook something special may be tempting, for a certain demographic, the extent of the waste packaging is truly mind-boggling!

They're eyewateringly expesive too. Last year when someone on Twitter was crowing about Gousto I totted up the cost:

My diet: £1.10/1000kcals
Gousto: ~£5.00/1000kcals

Spending thick end of five times the price rather than measure out ingredients for yourself is an example of how spoilt the first world is becoming.

I now have to buy apples in a single use plastic wrap that contains 6 apples. Can't by 5 or 7 apples (not a big deal) but the single use plastic sealed bag is an issue.

It's a real problem if you live alone, I did a quick count up, and >80% of the shelf space in my local Tesco is pre-packed fruit & veg in quantities I can't use. It's getting harder and harder to maintain any variety in F&V.

Their absolute obsession is shelf-life and any packaging that doesn't help that end is destined for failure...

They do it to stop people cherry-picking since Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall got on his ugly veg hobbyhorse as well.

Said it before on many occasion, socially, and on here too no doubt ............. when I was a kid, we had ONE galvanised bin outside the back door. Four of us in a three-bedroom semi with two coal fires.

The bin was collected from our back door, taken by the bin-men once a week, emptied into their lorry, and the bin returned to the back door.

I missed two fortnightly collections in a row once, and after 6 weeks, my wheelie bin still wasn't full.

On R4 the other day, they were talking about frozen food.
The chap being interviewed was saying the frozen broccoli is FAR cheaper than fresh from the greengrocer.

Frozen veg tastes horrible in our opinions.
What the heck do they do to peas, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower etc to make it so horrible?

Fresh veg every time for us.

I buy a lot of fresh loose fruit & veg, but there's no way I could get by without frozen as well. I miss out on loads of recipes and variety as it is because I can't buy stuff in the quantities I need for one, and I just refuse to overbuy and then waste it.