Fast food chain Kwalitaria will serve fries and snacks on Notpla’s cardboard trays with a seaweed-based coating – a partnership set to eliminate 6.9 tonnes of plastic waste and 102.5 tonnes of CO2 annually.
Aiming to avoid the plastic layers of conventional cardboard trays, Notpla’s solution is said to be home-compostable and avoid the generation of microplastics, all while maintaining the necessary performance for hot and greasy foods.
The Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate has declared the packaging as fully plastic-free, and thus compliant with the EU Single-Use Plastics scheme.
By partnering with Kwalitaria, Notpla hopes to introduce its seaweed-based packaging materials to large-scale quick-service restaurants, fast food applications, and snack chains – helping them address plastic pollution at the source.
These can be difficult end markets for sustainability-minded packaging design due to their high volumes, strict performance requirements, and operational pressures.
In turn, the company hopes to demonstrate the viability of its packaging in high-volume, fast-paced foodservice environments.
“For us, this partnership is about more than replacing a material,” said Pierre Paslier, CEO and co-founder of Notpla. “It shows that plastic-free packaging can work at scale in real-world QSR settings, without compromising on performance, food safety or customer experience.”
“With Kwalitaria, we are taking a big step towards a plastic-free world,” the company commented. “As the first major snack formula in the Netherlands, we are introducing completely plastic-free packaging for our fries and snacks. No more plastic layer, but an innovative coating based on seaweed. Smart, sustainable and ready for the future.”
Packaging converter Conpax selected the Notpla-coated board for use in Kwalitaria’s foodservice packaging.
“Frontrunners should be put in the spotlight,” added Conpax’s commercial director, Wilco Wieling. “Kwalitaria is a frontrunner, the first cafeteria organization in the Netherlands to convert its fries and snack packaging to Notpla-coated products that are 100% plastic-free and therefore fall outside the SUP scheme. This collaboration shows what’s possible when ambition and innovation meet.”
Another collaboration saw Notpla supply its home-compostable, seaweed-based packaging to foodservice operations at Imperial College London. The project aims to replace more than 450,000 units of single-use plastic packaging and cut 13,300kg of carbon emissions.
In similar news, Lieferando has adopted Huhtamaki’s cardboard delivery boxes coated in Xampla’s plant-based Morro material for the Austrian market – a move anticipated to reduce plastic consumption within its operations and comply with the Single-Use Plastics Directive.
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