Saving plastic with vegetable tattoo

Early TV program Green Light already paid attention to Natural Branding by the Dutch company Eosta: a laser is used to apply a natural label to the skin of fruit and vegetables, without affecting their taste, smell or shelf life. This makes stickers and packaging materials superfluous, which saves a lot of plastic and CO2. After the Swedish ICA, supermarket chain Jumbo now also dares to apply this technique to its organic vegetables.

The aim is to reduce the large amount of plastic packaging materials used in food retail. Eosta calculated to save 2000 kilos of plastic just by eliminating the stickers on their avocados. At the same time, only 1% of energy is needed for lasering compared to sticker production.

Jumbo is starting with lasering ginger, zucchini and bottle pumpkin and plans to expand this to other suitable vegetables later. Albert Heijn has also experimented with the laser on several occasions, but stopped because the application only works on hard-shelled products and would have negatively affected sales.

Jumbo actually wants to be a leader in sustainability. It expects the share of Dutch AGF on the shelves with a PlanetProof certification* to have risen to almost 80 percent by the end of the year. In addition, the chain is stimulating the consumption of more fruit and vegetables with the #grillenmetgroenten campaign, in collaboration with Natuur & Milieu, and the statement of the percentage of the daily recommended intake of vegetables on packaging.


Photo: Jumbo
Sources: Goedemorgen Groente, Voor de Wereld van Morgen, Jumbo