Reducing Plastic with Compostable Packaging
Long English Cucumbers – the ones you often find at your local grocery store – are a Cucumber variety that has thin skin and a high water content, which means they need to be wrapped to extend their shelf life and protect them from injury. But the plastic that these Cucumbers are traditionally wrapped in usually ends up in a landfill. So, we asked ourselves this important question:
How can we keep both our products and the planet protected with our packaging choices?
After 2 years of thorough research and development, our 100% home compostable Cucumber wrap was born! The first of its kind to be launched within the North American marketplace, this eco-friendly wrap protects and preserves our Long English Cucumbers while also avoiding any plastic waste from entering the environment. This wrap protects both our products and the planet!
The Facts
Made from a starch-based material, this eco-friendly wrap fully breaks down into CO2 and water in a home compost bin. Once decomposed, the wrap does not leave behind any microplastics – and it does all this while keeping our Cucumbers crisp and protected!
The wrap’s eco-friendly messaging and PLU sticker graphic are also printed directly on the wrap with 100% compostable ink. This allows for the entire wrap to be thrown in the compost bin – no need to remove any stickers or labels first.
If you look at a traditional plastic Cucumber wrap, each wrap contains 0.00436 pounds of plastic. This means that, if we wrap 5 million Cucumbers in our new home compostable wrap, we will save the equivalent of 23 million plastic straws from landfills!
There is incredible potential for this home compostable wrap to transform the way we package produce so both our products and our planet can be protected. If you want to see our Long English Cucumbers packaged in this compostable wrap in your local grocery store, let your Produce Manager know!
A Deeper Dive into Composting
Home composting is one of the most eco-friendly ways to create natural, nutrient-rich fertilizer for home gardens and flower beds. It is also one of the best ways to divert organic waste out of the garbage so it can be used productively. With such positive environmental impacts, home composting is a great option for families looking to reduce their household waste and practice greener living.
How to Compost
Once you’re ready to dispose of your home compostable Cucumber wrap, you can simply place it in your home compost bin with other organic waste. The wrap will naturally decompose alongside all other organic material within approximately 90 days to become humus, an earthy substance rich in nutrients and beneficial for soil health. The humus can then be mixed into the soil of your flower beds, gardens, and potted plants.
So, composting this Cucumber wrap is simple:
Step 1: Unwrap – Slice, dice, and serve your Cucumber.
Step 2: Compost – Place the wrap in your home compost bin.
Step 3: Grow – Wait 90 days and add the compost to your garden with fresh seeds of your choice!
For more information on how to compost at home and what to put in your home compost bin, check out our backyard composting blog!
The Seeds We Plant Matter
To celebrate the launch of this eco-friendly package, our team decided to raise awareness for the importance of caring for our planet. We published a post on our Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts on October 1st that encourages people to share the post – and each share equals one tree planted!
We have vowed to plant up to 25,000 trees to help our North American forests thrive, and our friends at One Tree Planted will be helping us plant these trees in the regions that need it most. We are thankful to have their support and expertise as we carry out this campaign.
Want to get involved? All you have to do is share our post on social media and we’ll plant a tree – it’s that easy.
Learn More About Our Sustainable Packaging
Packaging plays an important role in fresh produce: it extends shelf life, ensures food safety standards are met, and reduces food waste. But we believe in developing packaging whenever we can that is not only good for our products, but also the planet.
Our 100% home compostable Cucumber wrap isn’t the only eco-friendly package we’ve developed – our compostable pulp-molded tray is another green packaging initiative that has helped us save thousands of pounds of Styrofoam from entering landfills! This compostable and recyclable tray is made from 100% post-industrial paper waste which is then ground up and mixed with water to create a pulp-based material. During its decomposition, no toxic or hazardous waste materials are released into the environment.
To learn more about our compostable pulp-molded tray and the importance of sustainable packaging, check out our sustainable packaging blog post!
