One of Europe’s leading take-away salad bar company Picadeli has replaced their single-use plastics lid with a formed fiber lid. The new lid is plastic-free, PFAS-free, renewable, recyclable, biodegradable and saves about 120 tonnes of plastic waste annually.
Picadeli has 2,300 salad bars throughout Europe and the USA. With a strong focus on sustainability Picadeli have set up a target to reduce their usage of plastic by 50% by 2025. Because of this, they wanted a plastic-free lid for their take-away packaging.
Picadeli’s concept is self-serving salad bars where the consumers pick and mixes their own salads. From the start Picadeli used plastic bowls and plastic lids. The bowl was changed to a cardboard bowl a few years back. Leaving the next challenge for Picadeli: Replacing the plastic lid.
Together, Picadeli and Stora Enso developed a lid made out of formed fiber. Formed fiber is an eco-friendly material made from wood fibers.
Yujia Zhang, Product Manager, Stora Enso said, “These types of lids only existed for drinking cups but not in bigger sizes. We had to develop a brand-new product that no one had done before.”
The new formed fiber lid, as other Stora Enso PureFiber products for take-away food, is plastic-free, recyclable as paper, biodegradable and free from PFAS and other forever chemicals.
Christine Soome, Food Concept Developer at Picadeli said, “We searched for a paper-based lid and started to discuss possibilities with Stora Enso. They introduced us to formed fiber which sounded great, but we were not sure of what would our customers think, as they won’t be able to see the salad through this type of non-transparent lid.”
“We tested the first prototype in a big mall in Gothenburg and we were very happy with the response. Since our customers pick the salad themselves, the need to see the food after closing with the lid was non-existing,” added Soome.
Features:
- The lid makes a “puff” sound when it’s attached to the bowl, proving that it’s tightly sealed
- One can stack salad packages on top of each other for easy carrying
- The lid has a round compartment suitable for a dressing cup
The design was a collaboration between Picadeli’s marketing department and Stora Enso’s packaging designer. Picadeli did the graphic design for the debossing on the lid whilst Stora Enso was responsible for the structural design.
“We’ve been close partners in all steps which is a big part in the success, it’s not been a customer/supplier relationship but a cooperation between our companies. It has been great fun and very rewarding!” concluded Soome.
Picadeli will replace 10 000 000 plastic lids yearly with the PureFiber lid which will reduce their plastic waste with approximately 120 tonnes annually. The carbon footprint of the PureFiber lid is up to 75% lower than alternative materials such as plastic or bagasse.