After an understandable sales dip during COVID and numerous national lockdowns, food to go has bounced back with more people travelling for work and leisure. 

Last year, Lumina Intelligence’s annual 2022 UK Food To Go report’ predicted that the value of the market will rise by 31.8% to £21.3 billion, whilst recent data from the TWC Group and MealTrak found there were 3.6 billion out of home occasions in the UK in the last year. That’s a lot of sandwiches! 

So how is the food to go sector managing its sustainability credentials? We speak to Laura Kirwan PhD, Sustainability Lead at Nutritics, about the environmental impact of food on the move. 

Single-use packaging 

The nature of takeout options from cafés, fast-food outlets and coffee shops across the UK means that packaging is usually one of the biggest concerns when it comes to food to go’s impact on the natural environment. 

Our ‘lunch on the move’ buying habits generate a massive 11 billion items of packaging waste a year in the UK alone (City to Sea/Eunomia Report, 2020) and food wrappers are now unfortunately the most found items on beaches around the world (Ocean Conservancy). 

Single-use packaging is the main offender in this category — so it was really positive to hear that single-use plastic items including cutlery, plates and polystyrene cups are set to be banned in England by the end of this year. Of the approximately one billion single-use plates and more than four billion disposable cutlery items used annually in England, only 10% are recycled — this was much needed legislation. 

A sustainable cup of coffee? 

Discarded coffee cups and water bottles are one the most visible waste problems in the UK. Whilst much progress has been made with the introduction of compostable or single-material coffee cups, most coffee cups sold in the UK are still multi-layer and multi-material, containing plastics as well as fibre-based materials. This makes them challenging to recycle mechanically, meaning they are not accepted in many household or curbside recycling collections. 

It was pleasing to see Costa and McDonald’s team up last year to introduce coffee cup recycling points at 30 motorway service stations, but more needs to be done. An obvious route for outlets to take is to encourage and incentivise customers to use their own reusable cups. 

This is what Monmouth Coffee did in 2022 when they stopped using single-use, disposable, hot-drinks cups in their shops. Instead, they now offer takeaway drinks in a reusable rent-a-cup, consumers’ own cup or a ceramic cup. 

It must have been a gamble for them to make the step, since it could potentially lead to a loss in sales, but they’ve put sustainability front and centre for their customers to see. When it comes to the larger coffee chains, Caffè Nero insists on all sit-in orders being served in reusable cups while, for a number of years, Pret a Manger has given customers a 50p discount if they have a reusable cup.  

High consumer expectations

Awareness of plastic pollution is high amongst the public, especially when compared to other environmental issues. Documentaries such as BBC’s Planet Earth have starkly shown the devastating effect plastic is having on ecosystems around the world and highlighted the dangerous implications of our throwaway culture. 

Unless we turn our backs on the concept of food on the move, packaging is always going to be a necessity for this sector — from a transport but also a food safety perspective. Outlets offering food to go need to ensure they are implementing solutions and showing their customers they are taking steps to either reduce waste, or exploring packaging that has a less harmful footprint. 

Limiting the use of single-use plastics or packaging should be the priority for food to go outlets, as well as ensuring that where possible you are reusing or recycling materials, and encouraging your customers to do so as well. 

Sourcing products

Another area where businesses can potentially lessen the impact of their food is through responsible sourcing. Taste is a key factor when choosing ingredients, but be mindful of other environmental metrics, such as animal welfare, energy usage within the production process and responsible sourcing, including the use of sustainable farming practices and regenerative schemes. 

New technologies can be used to inform this transition through the use of data insights and mapping. Foodprint from Nutritics provides an eco-score for ingredients and recipes, providing companies with a greater handle on their food and drink supply chain, and a path to more responsible sourcing.

Quickfire sustainability tips

  • Encourage the use of reusable drinking bottles and help to minimise sales of plastic water bottles by making it clearly visible that you provide free water refills. City to Sea’s Refill campaign offers window stickers to help you advertise this to customers. 
  • Say no to the sachet. According to Sack the Sachet, over 2.3 billion plastic sachets (containing ketchup, mayonnaise etc.) are used globally every day. Luckily, these sachets could be next to be banned by the UK government. Until then, try only distributing upon request or distribute sauce in reusable ramekins if possible. 
  • Encourage consumers to use their own bags. While paper bags are much more common nowadays and a good alternative to plastic, they still have an environmental impact, so only give bags upon request and remind consumers to bring their own next time! 

Progress is being made when it comes to food to go. For example, McDonald’s has said that by 2024 all its packaging should be renewable, recycled or certified, and all the waste in its restaurants should be recycled or composted. M&S Food meanwhile has a target to remove a billion units of plastic by 2027 and re-evaluate every SKU, while protecting the shelf-life and stopping food waste. 

It’s important that all businesses, big and small, continue to look at ways to reduce their packaging waste and work together with customers to encourage environmental best-practice where they can.