Update on our use of plastic in packaging, especially for Easter
Hello, co-founder Claire here with an update for you on plastics in our packaging, especially our Easter packaging. We are seeing more enquiries about this on our social media feeds, so I thought an update might be of interest!
We are working hard to reduce the amount of plastic we are using in our business and are working with our suppliers to ensure we are on top of all the alternatives that are becoming increasingly available for a small business such as ours. It is all changing fast and we hope that we are keeping on top of it all!
Our grey hexagonal Easter Egg Boxes are made of cardboard so can be easily recycled, as can the removable plastic sleeve inside. This plastic sleeve is actually made of 70% recycled materials, so is not virgin plastic & we hope that soon we will be able to work with a 100% recycled plastic material for such items.
Smaller Easter items like our Easter Hens and Boris the Bunny bars are presented in what look like plastic cello bags but these are actually made of fully compostable (in a domestic compost bin too) woodpulp.
We are chuffed to bits with these bags & use them for lots of our pre-packed items, including our popular mini bars, & also if you choose loose chocolates from our chocolate display cabinets when visiting one of our Chocolate Houses.
Our yellow boxes filled with six foiled eggs with mini buttons inside are actually real egg boxes! We buy them from a company local to us in Dorset who supply hen houses and lots of different cartons for shipping eggs. The egg boxes are made with an already recycled cardboard & we hope that you will recycle your box after you have eaten the eggs inside.
Our Easter Bunny tubes filled with assorted Easter shapes are made of cardboard but we think they are very reusable - perfect for filling with pencils perhaps?
Finally, if you visit one of our Chocolate Houses, you will see a range of larger Easter eggs as in the photo above - again, whilst this wrap may look like plastic, it is actually biodegradable & compostable cornstarch. It has quite a different texture to normal cello as you would get with a bunch of flowers for example - it's very crinkly & noisy! We now have these cornstarch rolls in our Chocolate Houses, so you will be able to have your fill your own edible box, egg or cocoa pod wrapped in this new material too.
As you may already know, ever since we launched the business back in 2002, all our Selection Boxes are made of cardboard with cardboard grids inside to hold each chocolate in place - we have NEVER used plastic inserts to hold our chocolates (& never will), unlike most other chocolate companies. We are always quite flattered to see other newer chocolate businesses launching with the same cardboard grids inside their boxes - if we have helped reduce other people's usage of plastic, then happy days.
We have also offered a 10% discount for any of our customers who brings a selection box back into one of our shops for refilling since we launched back 2002 - we will tidy up the box by replacing the internal paper if it needs it, refill it with the chocolates of your choice & put a new use by date stamp on the bottom of the box. We have seen many much loved & quite elderly boxes being brought back in by regular customers, especially in Swanage!
We also have only ever had paper carrier bags in our shops and, in our cafes we offer discounts on takeaway hot drinks if you bring in a reusable cup (or a free first drink if you buy a reusable cup from us), paper straws, wooden spoons & fully compostable tubs for our gelato.
You can also takeaway used coffee grounds for your compost if you would like too. You are also welcome to refill your resuable water bottle from our free water dispensers in all our cafes.
We fully appreciate that there is lots more to do to reduce our impact on the environment but we are on the case and care about doing the right thing for us all.