Innocent Packaging

The cool design of Innocent Packaging’s cup carrier ‘briefcase’ made from craft paper caught our eye when the Good team was out on a shoot and needed a coffee fix.

Innocent Packaging is the brainchild of entrepreneur Tony Small, producing a range of good looking sustainable food packaging made from plants.

Ironically Small’s first business was a reusable coffee cup company but he soon realised they were “a band-aid to a bigger problem of disposable plastics and food packaging and that things needed to be simplified for the masses”.

“We essentially went from a reusable packaging company to a disposable packaging company that’s made from plants,” says Small.

The company uses a number of plant-based materials for its products including waste wheat straw in China, where farmers have been banned from burning it because of air pollution. Innocent Packaging is helping the farmers by taking the straw, washing it, and turning it into mulch, which is then moulded into plates, burger clam shells and salad containers using heat transfer technology. The waste water from the process is fed into a huge worm farm. The fertiliser from the worm farm goes back to the farmers to use and the worms sold for fish food. “It’s almost zero waste manufacturing,” says Small. “We’re pretty close.”

Clear products like cups and straws are made from plant sugar (PLA) derived from corn sugar and commercially compostable.

When creating products for Innocent Packaging they want them to look good too. The hot paper cups come in a variety of colours and what Small describes as a “compostable canvas”. Every six weeks Innocent Packaging invites a different artist to create an illustration for the cups. “We’re promoting both sustainability and New Zealand art,” says Small. “It’s a great way for them to get their name out there.”