Reducing Mindful Chef's carbon footprint by 30%

Food packaging, fresh food packaging, food boxes, Meal kit

Smurfit Westrock helps Mindful Chef reduce carbon footprint with sustainable box solution

Mindful Chef, one of the leading recipe box companies in the U.K., is committed to delivering fresh, high-quality meals while minimizing environmental impact. To enhance its sustainability efforts, the company partnered with Smurfit Westrock to develop a recyclable, closed-loop packaging solution. Crafted from recycled materials and designed for maximum efficiency, these innovative boxes keep ingredients fresh while helping reduce waste and carbon footprints.

Myles Hopper, co-founder of Mindful Chef, said, “By working with Smurfit Westrock, a world leader in sustainable packaging and who shares our passion for protecting our planet, we’ve created a bespoke, 100% recyclable solution for Mindful Chef with no waste and full transparency and traceability throughout the process.”

The Challenge

Mindful Chef is a leading UK recipe box company, which has been climate neutral since 2020, and is committed to being as sustainable as possible. They wanted to source an alternative for their previous recipe box, which consisted of insulation pouches combined with gel ice packs, which, whilst effective at keeping the contents cool, were not easily recycled.

The Approach

The Smurfit Westrock team developed a recyclable alternative that was more sustainable while still maintaining the required temperatures over extended periods. A kraft substrate was created that could survive unpredictable weather and be printed in vibrant colours, allowing Mindful Chef’s logo to shine—a critical aspect of eCommerce packaging.

The Result

The new solution encompasses corrugated cardboard insulation packs, with a 30% lower carbon footprint than the previous insulation, in a snug, two-piece telescopic design. During testing at Smurfit Westrock's International Safe Transit Association (ISTA) certified lab, the new packaging solution demonstrated that it kept the ingredients under 8°c for over 30 hours in ambient conditions, meeting the strict requirements for fresh food transportation.