Goodbye Plastic, Hello Jute: How Plated Delivers Ingredients in Sustainable Packaging

Can we say goodbye to foam insulation?

Most companies that ship perishables rely on plastic foam, the petroleum-based insulation that keeps food in good shape, but never breaks down in a landfill.

At Plated, we’re moving away from harmful insulation in every one of our boxes, replacing it with 100% recycled jute liners. So now, the boxes we ship to over 95 percent of the U.S. will be foam-free.

The jute liner protects all the food inside, keeping ingredients cool and fresh, and then — like magic — disintegrates like any other food or yard waste.

The change in packaging is in line with Plated’s existing commitment to sustainability. As a food company, we take advantage of our ability to purchase ingredients only from purveyors with high environmental standards, and prevent food waste by sending exactly the right quantity of each ingredient for our recipes. Our goal with this new initiative is to ensure that the packaging in our delivery boxes is as kind to the environment as our food.

To this end, the team at Plated looked around for a more sustainable solution for our liners. Finding nothing in the market, we approached the engineers at TemperPack and set out to design earth-friendly insulation together. The box liner they created, called Jutebox, comes from a surprisingly common source: recycled cocoa- and coffee-shipping bags made out of jute, a plant that flourishes in Southeast Asia’s warm, damp climate.

Because it’s affordable and quick to mature, jute is defined as a rapidly renewable resource whose durable fibers have long been turned into sacks for shipping products like cocoa.

Whereas the typical insulation material, polyurethane, produces a little over 4.5 lbs. of CO2 per pound of insulation during manufacturing, recycled jute insulation will create a mere 0.23 lbs. To bring this invention to market, Plated joined TemperPack as a partner, and put our faith in this technology and in the future of earth-friendly packaging advances in the e-commerce world.

This is not the first action we’ve taken to respect and nurture the environment. Plated’s mission to eliminate food waste cuts into the 40% of all food in the United States that is thrown away. Our ingredients come from honest, sustainable farmers, domestic fishermen who don’t squander their catch by processing it overseas, and butchers who supply meats raised without antibiotics or added hormones. Even the cardboard in Plated’s boxes is sourced from vetted suppliers who’ve joined the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. All our packaging is recyclable.

We also plan to have completely carbon-neutral packaging by 2016. Want to try Plated out and start getting delicious meals in environmentally sound packaging? Click here.