Specialist organic fruit and vegetable distributor Eosta says that its laser-based technique for ‘labelling’ fruit and veg has avoided the use of 50 million pieces of plastic since it was introduced in 2016 under its brand name Nature & More.
Eosta calls the technique ‘natural branding, and it is used as a way of avoiding the use of stickers and packaging in supermarkets. The kick-off took place in Sweden, where Swedish supermarket ICA started selling Nature & More avocados and sweet potatoes marked using natural branding. Since 2016 Eosta has rolled the scheme out much more widely, purchasing several machines along the way. To date, the technology has resulted in the avoidance of using 50 million pieces of plastic packaging, which corresponds to 500,000 kg of plastic, 216,000 square metres of paper, and an energy saving of 2.2 million kg of CO2 emissions, equalling 19 million kilometres driven by car. In 2018, Eosta received the Sustainable Food Award for this innovative packaging method.
Commenting on this milestone, Paul Hendriks, Eosta packaging manager, and packaging expert Gerben Borsje, said: “The most sustainable packaging is the absence of packaging, and for organic products, this is achieved using natural branding. Studies show that consumers are very happy about this, because they naturally prefer buying their organic products free from plastic packaging.’