What if returnable jars were the future of food packaging? "You just have to think about bringing them back!"

2023-05-10 10:16:00

Planète avenir is looking into food packaging this Friday. With one solution among others to protect the planet: returnable jars. A cooperative in Rhisnes, near Namur, offers help to Walloon professionals to put their products in jars, with 100,000 jars currently in circulation per year.

On store shelves, many food products are still presented in plastic packaging. “We can see all around us that there is still a lot of plastic packaging, it’s not very green…”says a client we interviewed. “It’s a problem in terms of waste management, I think it’s expensive for society, it pollutes”answers another young woman crossed in the aisles of a supermarket.

How to reduce the presence of these disposable packaging?

At “Paysans artisans”, near Namur, we found a solution: it’s jars. In the fridges of this brand dedicated to local products, not a shadow of plastic. Here, there are returnable jars of all sizes. You will have to spend 50 cents for the small jars and up to €1 for the larger ones; a sum that will be paid to the customer when he brings the jar back to the store. “You just have to think about bringing it back”notes a customer. “If it’s a way to avoid all that is pollution, it deserves this little extra mental load.”

An opinion shared by other visitors to this eco-friendly brand. “It’s better to use returnable jars because you know you’re reusing them otherwise it accumulates at home, and you still have to take them to the glass bubbles.”

A cooperative for bottling

To facilitate bottling, the cooperative “La fabrique Circuit court” makes a building available to Walloon professionals. On the day of our report, Anne was busy preparing Asian dishes. For her brand new catering service, she opted for jars. “It’s interesting because we know how to reuse them in one way or another, and aluminum is slightly, even a lot, harmful to health”she explains, filling her jars with her greedy dishes. “It also helps to reduce expenses.”

The cooperative offers Anne different models. They cost professionals 15 to 35 cents, washing included. A classic disposable packaging costs on average 15 cents. “It is to allow small artisanal producers in the region – we are not talking about big breweries here – to enter into a virtuous system”explains Benoît Dave, of the cooperative “La fabrique Circuit court”.

The cook can also take advantage of equipment, such as a steam capper or a shared sterilizer. The latter is completed with the help of Geoffroy, quality assistant for the organization Diversiferm. “We put the hot water pipe on, we go up to 115 degrees for 90 minutes and we cool down”, he indicates.

The jars will then be ready for sale. Services and rentals payable by the day, which benefit the little ones.