The Post-COVID-19 Packaging Predicament
If you've visited one of our booths at a farmers market, holiday show, or local fair, you might recall that the packaging of our products (from pads to beeswax wraps) has included ZERO plastic. In fact, the packaging overall has purposely been kept to a minimum.
We like it this way!
We like that the product itself is the highlight of the purchase. No fancy packaging required. We like that the purchase of our products produces very little waste.
The pads come tagged with a reusable safety pin and a business card sized info tag.
For our beeswax wraps, we prefer a paper postcard style information sheet tied to our folded wraps with a piece of organic cotton butchers twine. Simple and smart.
And now there's COVID-19.
There's social distancing, facemasks, and oh so much hand sanitizer. All important to the efforts of avoiding infecting ourselves and others.
Because of our heightened awareness, and our understanding of the risks associated with touching (and ooh, the smelling) of a beeswax wrap meant to cover our foods, we've decided that it's important to package the beeswax wraps that are available at our retailers and our trade shows/markets, at least for now.
Until our paper packaging arrives, we've sourced a plant-based "plastic" called PLA - Polylactic Acid - that is made from renewable resources (corn starch or sugar cane.) We're still doing more research on this product as a solution - certain conditions are required for composting, but until we confirm our paper packaging this will be in use.
When you see the noisy, shiny packaging of our wraps, please know that it's not the natural, zero waste option that we prefer, but we're doing our best to consider health and safety as well as the environment, as so many other producers and retailers are.
When you order wraps through the website, we will not package them in PLA. Our website inventory is never brought into public and is stored in a controlled environment.
On a related note, given that the pads and accessories are washed before worn, and not used to cover food, we're going to keep the minimal packaging as it is. (Yay!)
As always, we would love your feedback on this new packaging and any of our products. If you have ideas or alternatives that I need to know about, please reach out!
We hope you are staying safe, healthy, and happy out there!
Thanks for reading. :)