Home-delivered dinners in compostable packaging
Simple Feast saves a busy week with home-delivered dinners in compastable packaging made by Bioska.
Simple Feast, a Danish food company founded in 2015 by serial entrepreneurs Jakob Jønck and Thomas Ambus, is revolutionizing easy dinners. By signing a subscription, you get three meals delivered every Sunday to your home to enjoy during busy weekdays. Simple Feast recently expanded to Sweden and is now taking on the US market with a launch in California.
Sustainability has been high up on the agenda since day one. In fact, it’s one of the company’s customer promises along with organic produce and locally sourced ingredients.
“It’s in the backbone of our company to always look for the most sustainable way to do things”, says Simon Stenhøj, Director for Production at Simple Feast.
This attitude naturally also extends to packaging and waste.
The food is transported to customers in different boxes, cups, and pouches. In the beginning, the food was packed manually, but as the business started to grow, Stenhøj investigated the possibilities to automate the packaging. He also wanted to replace the plastics cups used for transporting dressings with a more sustainable alternative such as compostable sachets.
While recyclable packages can be considered the go-to alternative in the quest for sustainability, that option was ruled out as the dressing is oily and thus contaminates the packaging. A compostable solution is a better bet.
“The challenge was to make the sachet degradable while not compromising criteria on permeability and shelf life of up to one week”, he recalls.
Walki®Bioska tackles acidity and oil
Stenhøj set out to find a supplier who was up for the challenge to find a biodegradable solution for dressing sachets. He found one in Walki Plastiroll.
“The combination of acidity and oil is particularly challenging for compostable materials. We decided to experiment with our Walki®Bioska in our offering how it behaved with this type of content”, says Marko Päiväniemi, Export Director, Bioplastic Products.
Compostable materials have high breathability with a high Water Vapour Transmission Rate (WVTR). For some food stuff this is good news while it may come with some challenges for others. A compostable film breathes, but that also means that humidity can pass through from the outside into the bag. However, as Simple Feast’s meals are to be consumed within a week, you do not need to worry about prolonging shelf life.
The team at Walki Plastiroll set out to find the optimal solution and landed on a multilayer structure which is designed for flow pack packaging.
“The multilayer structure is made for optimal functionality”, explains Päiväniemi.
Compostable films for zero waste
The film was tested in laboratories and on Simple Feast’s automation line in Copenhagen, and it did indeed fit the bill: the dressing remained fresh in the sachet without leaking.
Stenhøj’s colleagues at Simple Feast were also happy with the result, although they initially had expressed some doubt over whether it would work.
“It turns out we cut a lot of costs on the packaging, and more importantly: we got easily disposable waste.”
The feedback from customers has also been very positive. In fact, so good that Simple Feast is looking in to replacing other packaging solutions with Walki Plastiroll’s film.
“We want to be best in class when it comes to sustainable packaging, and we can definitely see a bigger role for compostable films”, concludes Simon Stenhøj.