● Notpla – one of the 15 finalists in Prince William’s Earthshot Prize 2022 – is launching a new range of 7 packaging solutions coated with seaweed to accelerate true sustainable offers within the takeaway industry.
● Notpla Coating has been designed to biodegrade naturally, and is both home-compostable and recyclable. It has many of the same grease and water-resistant qualities of plastic, but it is not plastic! Instead it is made from seaweed and plants.
● The new collection has been awarded the Innovation of the Year by UK Packaging Award 2022, as well as the Innovation Award by the Responsible Packaging Expo Awards 2022
Europeans use in excess of two billion takeaway boxes every year. To protect paper and pulp based boxes from oil and water, most are lined with a plastic coating or packed with “forever” chemicals known as PFAs. The plastic waste produced weighs the equivalent of six cargo ships, every single year. Sadly, poor waste management infrastructure hinders recycling, causing plastic and bioplastic foodware to end up in landfill. Here they will take decades to degrade and leave behind microplastics. In 2021, with the support of Just Eat Takeaway.com, Notpla came up with a solution, and launched the Notpla coating.
Notpla Coating has many of the same grease and water-resistant qualities of plastic, but is made from seaweed and plants! Designed to biodegrade naturally, takeaway packaging using Notpla Coating can be recycled or thrown in a home compost, leaving no harmful traces behind in the environment at end-of-life. This year, Notpla has made over 1 million takeaway food boxes for Just Eat Takeaway.com, with the potential to replace over 100 million plastic-coated containers in Europe in the future. Just Eat Takeaway.com supplied seaweed-coating packaging on their platform in the UK, Austria, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands and Ireland.
Today, Notpla is launching a new range of packaging coated with seaweed to accelerate sustainable offers within the takeaway industry. The elegant collection is made of 7 plastic-free packaging solutions: Notpla Small, Notpla Medium, Notpla Large, Notpla Burger Box, Notpla Square Tray, Notpla rectangular Tray, Notpla Deep Tray. Available both in PFA-free white kraft paperboard and in PFA-free Brown Kraft paperboard, this packaging has been designed with nature in mind. In line with the new EU Single-Use Plastic Directive, which aims to ban synthetic materials such as PLA, PHA and other bioplastics, this new range of seaweed-coated packaging biodegrades in nature in just 4-6 weeks without the need for industrial composting or special conditions.
Careful consideration has been given to the size and form of each product in the Notpla range. The design has been optimised, ensuring that each box is as efficient, cost effective and sustainable as possible. This new collection of takeaway packaging solutions already received high level industry recognition. It has been awarded the Innovation of the Year by UK Packaging Award 2022, as well as the Innovation Award by the Responsible Packaging Expo Awards 2022. Finally, as one of the finalists of the Earthshot Prize in the category “Building a Waste-Free World”, Notpla is expecting to scale-up capabilities to fulfil its mission to “make packaging disappear”. One of its goals includes working with converters or paper mills to provide Notpla coating directly to the manufacturers.
Pierre-Yves Paslier, co-CEO of Notpla said: “We wanted to create an elegant range of packaging which elevates our customers’ food, and was versatile enough to cater to all cuisines. Our aim is to have a maximum impact with a minimal range!”