Innovations in food-packaging with delivery company Gousto

In 2013, the founder of Gousto, Timo Schmidt, asked Dragons Den UK for £100,000, in return for a 7% stake in the gourmet home dining experience. 

By 2020, Gousto was the leading home-delivery option in the UK and had a revenue of £189m. 

This month, Gousto has rolled out a UK-first recipe box packaging innovation – the Eco Chill box, an innovation in food-packaging, which will prevent waste and not compromise food safety or taste.

Gousto allows customers to choose their meals online and delivers the ingredients and instructions to their door, helping families with little time prepare healthy, tasty meals.

The Eco Chill box is an insulation box made from recycled cardboard, which keeps Gousto’s fresh food cold throughout delivery. Previously the company had been using a biodegradable insulation product, which required plastic wrapping. But Eco Chill’s original design will save 74.5 tonnes of plastic from Gousto boxes each year.

The Eco Chill insulation box is an innovation in food-packaging

Cardboard is a top insulator and the Eco Chill Box uses multiple layers of it to trap the air and create pockets of insulation, which prevent cold air from escaping out of the box and keeping food chilled.

“Gousto was born out of the vision to remove food waste from the system, a lot of which is created by inefficiencies in traditional grocery chains”, said Boldt. “By harnessing technology, we’ve achieved a significant 23% carbon emissions saving compared to a supermarket shop. Whilst we grow rapidly, we are committed to doing so with purpose towards our goal that every meal will leave the world better off.”

The company looked into other materials such as paper-based, bio-based, compostable and biodegradable, even seaweed and thistle plastic, but cardboard won. 

The sustainability journey continues for Gousto

The next big sustainability goal for Gousto will be to encourage other businesses and even the UK government to join in and make similar commitments for a positive impact. 

But as a business, Gousto plans for all of its branded plastic packaging to be either reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2022.