Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Snack packages

If you have seen me in the snack section at the co-op lately, then you know that I am seriously struggling with the packaging of snack foods. Specifically the packaging of the good all natural snacks that my family and I love to eat, things like organic pretzels and potato chips.

See, I'm looking for a good company who can do more: I'm looking for a compostable bag around my potato chips.

Sunchips made a biodegradable bag for their product a few years ago, but it was apparently too noisy for their customers. They seriously ditched the bag and went back to the old packaging because of how noisy it was... but it seems that they have been working really hard trying to come up with an alternative to the rigid jet engine sounding bag.

What I'm looking for one of the more environmentally friendly companies that make snacks to step up to the plate and prove themselves to me - prove that you are THAT worth it for me to buy your products.

I've been poking around for weeks now and I finally came across something that I can work with: Boulder Canyon chips. Check them out - they totally have an option for buying their product in compostable packaging! I immediately put in my request to our grocery manager to bring in this option at our store (actually, it was more like begging than requesting). If this product interests you, consider putting in a request at the store(s) that you shop at. More interest in the product because of it's packaging can only encourage more packaging of it's kind. Imagine how cool it wold be if most of the snacks that we bought were in compostable or biodegradable packaging...

Do you know of any other companies/products that have compostable or biodegradable snack packages?? If so, please share!

5 comments:

  1. We tested the Sunchips bag in our composter, and nearly 1 year later, it had barely broken down. While it was kind of disappointing, it made me wonder how long the old packaging (and apparently now the new one) took to break down!

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  2. You are right Allie - we put a biodegradable cup in our compost maybe 2+ years ago and I sort of think it might still be there (or some of it). At work we offer biodegradable plastic utensils for take out and sometime I wonder if they are actually better - they are not recyclable and they come wrapped in plastic that is wrapped in more plastic. Not sure who thought that was necessary but it's such a turn off for me...

    My thought is that if I am going to through something away, I'd like to know that it will eventually break down. I know that the biodegradable trash bags take about 12-24 months to break down... which is a long time, but not compared to the 1000 years that regular plastic takes - and then it doesn't actually break down, it just breaks apart.

    Oh the things to think about!

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  3. Also, I was feeling a little bit better about the boulder bags because they seem like a more responsible company than sun chips so I'm hoping that they have a better product. If you click on the link for their compostable packaging it will lead you to a link for a PDF file that tells exactly what the product is made from. However, I have no idea how it compares to the sun chips bags in reality.

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  4. Check this article out: http://inspiredeconomist.com/2010/11/03/testing-compostability-claims-week-4/

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  5. I contacted Whole Foods Devon and asked them to carry the Boulder chips. I'll ask in person next time I'm there, too.

    I'll check with Giant, too. The guy in the natural foods section is really great about ordering whatever I want, as long as they have an account with the company.

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