Campaign code: 520

Sustainable transport, packing and more

We would like to tell you a bit about Nature & More's in-house sustainable efforts too. Sustainability does not stop at the farm fence of our growers. Nature & More transports the products to Europe, stores them, sometimes packs them, and ships them out. We have cars, cooling cells and office facilities. What about this part of the distribution process?

Transport

A part of the Nature & More assortment originates from overseas, so energy use and carbon emissions in transport are an important concern for us. It is often a misconception that products from overseas are flown in by airplane. At Nature & More, this is absolutely not the case. 99% of our overseas products are brought in by boat, which is the most energy-efficient transport method. Pineapples, apples, oranges, lemons, limes, kiwi's, grapefruits ... all our common, year round overseas products are transported by boat.

Storage vs transport

Nature & More supports regional and seasonal food. So why buy an apple from Argentina, if you can buy a European apple? Well, the answer is not as straightforward as it may seem. Regional products are often stored in cold cells for a long time, which costs a lot of energy. For example, if you buy regional apples in May, they have been in cool storage for at least half a year. At the same time, transport by ship adds less than 10% to the total amount of energy used in growing a fruit. Apart from that, quality and consumer demand are also important considerations.

Packing and wrapping

The first question you need to ask yourself, if you want to pack your products sustainably, is: do we really need to pack it at all? After all, the most sustainable packaging is no packaging whatsoever. Organic fruits and many vegetables come in their own colorful packing: the peel.

However, in supermarkets packaging is often required. It helps to keep the food fresh for a longer time and makes it possible to distinguish the organic product from non-organic products. We also use the packaging material to communicate about sustainability and Nature & More.

When we pack, we pack as sustainable as possible. All the packaging at our own facilities in Holland is done with sustainable materials which are compostable and/or come from renewable sources. Our bioplastics are made of corn or sugar cane waste. We have even found a way to make the code stickers and glue compostable (that was, actually, quite hard!).

Storage at Nature & More

Our storage facilities in Holland are powered by 'green' electricity, which originates from renewable sources. The fork-lift trucks used in storage are powered by green electricity as well!

The "green" office

At our main office in Waddinxveen, we use "green" electricity that comes from sustainable sources such as hydro-energy. In the office all the light bulbs are of the energy saving variety. We have also started switching to electric cars in 2012 and have already installed a nice purple charging station next to our office, with the Nature & More sustainability flower on top, as you can see on the photo!