Curb Food Waste | Takeout Packaging Should Give Consumers More Choices

China Consumer News reports (

Order a claypot rice and you get a clay pot; buy grilled fish and you get a stainless-steel baking tray. The first time it feels novel; do it too many times and it becomes a white elephant. In response, experts suggest that food-delivery packaging should offer consumers more choices, thereby avoiding waste in packaging. At the same time, environmental education aimed at consumers should be strengthened, so that consumers use greener choices to force companies to provide greener services.

Order takeout, get "luxury" packaging

"The claypot rice I ordered came with a clay pot — now that the meal is eaten, what should I do with the pot?" Recently, university student Wang, studying in Guangzhou, told a China Consumer News reporter that he had ordered a claypot rice on a food-delivery platform and found on arrival that it was served in a clay pot; Beijing consumer Ms. Jiang once ordered a hotpot-ingredient set on a food-delivery platform and unexpectedly received a pot and a stand as well.

Are today's takeouts all this "luxurious"? By looking at photos posted in user reviews of claypot rice on a food-delivery platform, the China Consumer News reporter found that some shops deliver claypot rice in disposable aluminum foil rice boxes, while others use clay pots. The reporter bought from one shop a cured-meat claypot rice priced at 39.8 yuan and a preserved-egg-and-lean-pork congee priced at 25 yuan. On arrival, the reporter found that the outermost layer of the claypot rice packaging was an insulated paper shell, the middle was high-temperature-resistant aluminum foil, and the innermost was an ordinary clay pot the size of a large bowl.

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The claypot rice the reporter bought came with a clay pot.

Afterward, the reporter bought, on another food-delivery platform, a green Sichuan peppercorn sea bass grilled fish for 79 yuan; this time, what came with the fish was a stainless-steel baking tray. The fish, soup and side dishes were each packed separately in sealed plastic bags.

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The grilled fish the reporter bought came with a stainless-steel baking tray.

No choice in food-delivery packaging

The packaging fee for the reporter's claypot rice order was 3 yuan. The clay pot was the most ordinary single-serving clay pot; although some user reviews said such pots are cheap and of low quality and questioned the reliability of reusing them, the reporter still washed it and kept it. But if it happens again next time, it might just be thrown away. The stainless-steel baking tray from the grilled-fish order was much thinner than an ordinary baking tray; the reporter also washed it and kept it, but could not think of what use it might have.

The reporter's investigation found that many consumers share this feeling. "At first I found it quite interesting, but after washing it and setting it aside, I felt it was really useless. I wanted to mail it home, but I didn't know whether the pot was worth the shipping cost," student Wang said awkwardly.

Ms. Jiang, meanwhile, told the reporter that such packaging is not entirely without benefits. "For example, when I host friends at home, ready-made pots and pans are not only attractive and presentable, but also save trouble and worry; but if it's just my own family eating, and frequently, then such packaging feels like a white elephant." Ms. Jiang believes it would be good if, when ordering, consumers could have more choices.

Tang Jiansheng, deputy secretary-general of the Shanghai Consumer Council, told a China Consumer News reporter that the reason consumers find such "luxury" food-delivery packaging a white elephant and wasteful is that consumers cannot choose a suitable packaging form according to their needs during the purchasing process. "After years of environmental education in many aspects, today's consumers already have fairly strong environmental awareness. But when it comes to packaging, they can only passively accept it, ultimately creating a fairly heavy psychological burden: throwing it away feels wasteful, keeping it takes up space and is useless," Tang Jiansheng said.

Strengthen consumer education to force merchants to package more eco-friendly

In fact, the problem is not limited to food-delivery packaging; many food packagings have similar issues.

Beijing consumer Ms. Liu told a China Consumer News reporter that some yogurt in supermarkets now uses high-quality plastic storage boxes as packaging. "I started buying a certain brand of yogurt because I liked its square storage box, but after buying it many times, I ended up with too many boxes at home, and in the end I stopped buying that yogurt because of the storage box," Ms. Liu said.

Some consumers also wonder: for such packaging used for takeout or food, why can't companies provide recycling services?

"Because the state has strict regulations on the cleaning, disinfection and reuse of recycled tableware, the cost of companies recycling it is far higher than the cost of buying new packaging, so most merchants will not recycle such packaging," Tang Jiansheng said. Although recycling services cannot be provided, more and greener packaging options should be offered for different consumer groups and needs.

At the same time, Tang Jiansheng believes that environmental-awareness education should be carried out in various forms for different consumer groups, so that consumers use greener consumption choices to force merchants to provide greener packaging.

It is reported that on May 1 this year, the Shanghai Consumer Council, together with Youku and Ele.me, jointly released a public-service video against food waste, "Let Us Together Launch a New 'Food' Fashion of the Clean Plate Campaign", and simultaneously pushed the public-service video on official WeChat, Weibo, Douyin and other internet platforms, launching a "Clean Plate New Fashion" topic discussion. The public-service video released on the "Shanghai Consumer Council" official Douyin account received 700,000 views and 10,000 likes. Moreover, young people left very enthusiastic comments, and many posted their own clean-plate responses.

"For food-delivery and food packaging, consumer environmental education also needs to be carried out in forms consumers enjoy. If non-eco-friendly packaging may cause the loss of customers, companies will naturally take greener actions," Tang Jiansheng said.

——This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn), original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-379349.html