Wagamama to remove up to 330 tonnes of virgin plastics by launching sustainable packaging solution

The decision will remove up to 330 tonnes of newly made, non-recycled plastic from the supply chain every year.

Wagamama CEO Thomas Heier said: “Reducing our use of virgin plastics is a complicated mission – but one we have been dedicated to for four years. This has been driven by the belief that we needed to do better for our guests, teams and the planet.

“Months of trial and error, conversations with leading experts, and research into UK waste streams has resulted in a moment where we can finally say we’re proud of our packaging. Proving small choices make for big change and sustainable progress doesn’t happen overnight. This is an exciting and overdue step for us but only the beginning”

The new packaging, made from cPET, will reduce the carbon footprint of the brand’s most popular dish – the katsu curry – by 62 per cent.

Wagamama is one of the first in the hospitality industry to use ‘cPET’, which is more commonly used for supermarket ready meals.

cPET is a food-safe material made from 70 per cent recycled content.

The remaining 30 per cent of the packaging products will be plastics which maintain the structural integrity of the container.

Wagamama has also committed to working with project partners to get a fully cPET solution within 18 month

The packaging’s material make-up is the result of four years of planning, in which time the company sought advice from leading plastic experts, UK waste collectors, suppliers and cutting-edge product designers.

Simon Ellin, president of the UK Recycling Association and leading expert who advised Wagamama on the move to cPET said: “It’s incredibly encouraging to see businesses like Wagamama take accountability for their waste and go to great lengths to research and understand the complex nature of the UK recycling landscape. There’s so much misinformation and false claims about where rubbish goes, you really need to take the time to fully understand the problem.

“Assessing their business needs, I’m confident cPET is the most sustainable option available to them at this time, and I'm pleased to see they have invested in this option. They will be leading consumer behaviour change with their ‘Bowl Bank’ initiative, and it would be brilliant to see more return initiatives like this from their peers.”

The new containers are set to be a lighter, sandy colour, which ensures the bowls and lids will be more easily detected by the NIR (Near Infra Red) scanners used by recycling plants to identify types of plastic.

Jo Barnard, creative director of design and innovation agency Morrama, who assisted in the project, said: “It was great to work with Wagamama as they were willing to take educated risks and ultimately allow their main sustainability objective to lead the project. We continuously balanced bettering guest and team experience with sustainability. We have reached a truly unique solution which reduces a massive amount of virgin plastic while still achieving the much loved ‘bowl to soul’ aesthetic Wagamama is famous for.”