Just Eat trials seaweed-based compostable ketchup sachets

Online global marketplace Just Eat has begun a six-week trial of Ooho! seaweed-based sauce sachets as part of its efforts to reduce the amount of plastic waste in the UK, especially from takeaways.

Made from an alginate-based material, the sachets — filled with ketchup of garlic and herb sauce — can be thrown into the home compost or normal bin and will decompose within six weeks.

Just Eat is working with sustainable packaging start-up Skipping Rocks Lab to trial the seaweed-based sachets with restaurant partner The Fat Pizza in Southend.

The trial will assess the feasibility of rolling out the sachets more broadly across its network of 29,000 restaurant partners in the UK.

Graham Corfield, UK Managing Director of Just Eat, said: “The Ooho Sauce Sachets trial, and the results from it, will form an important part of our ongoing work to develop innovative and credible alternatives to traditional single-use plastic packaging currently in use across the takeaway sector.”

This follows a number of packaging measures Just Eat announced in March in an attempt to reduce the impact of plastic packaging on the environment, including the 11 billion plastic condiment sachets sold globally. The company committed to stop selling single-use plastics in its shop in March, and trialled a pre-ticked box on its app and website so customers opted out of receiving unnecessary plastics in takeaways.

Image credit: Just Eat.