Cookies with Kooky Packaging

I previously wrote a post about Oreo Cookies because they had not only a plastic outer package, but also a plastic tray and cardboard inside (you can find the post here). Since then, I’ve noticed Oreos in the store in a much smaller package, so it seems they’ve changed packaging and I applaud Nabisco and Mondelez for that. Unfortunately, the world of cookies with plastic trays in addition to outer packaging is still well populated.

Here are two types of cookies I’ve discovered recently and they both have boxes, plastic wrap, and plastic trays (and not as many cookies in the box as one would think from looking at the box on the shelf!).

LeClerc Celebration Milk Chocolate Butter Cookies
By the time I took these photos, we had eaten almost all of the cookies, but I can tell you that each of the six sections of the plastic tray that are different shapes for some reason (the cookies are all the same rectangular shape) holds three cookies exactly. That means a box has precisely 18 cookies. This seems like a surprisingly small amount for the size of the box and the tray. The cookies are not that large or thick. They’re really good cookies, kind of like a digestive or butter cookie covered in a layer of really good chocolate. But I am disappointed in the packaging. After finishing the cookies, we were left with plastic wrap, a plastic tray, and a cardboard box. The plastic tray and cardboard box are easy to recycle, but one must remember that reducing is better than recycling. It takes energy and resources to recycle. It’s better to just not produce all this unnecessary packaging. There has to be a better way to package these fine cookies.

From the box, one would hope for more than 18 cookies. Who knows what 240 grams means.

This is two cookies sitting in the tray (there are normally three in each of the six sections. The packaging seems like overkill.

I can't understand the different shapes in the tray either. All the cookies look like the this.

So much waste left after the 18 cookies are gone.

Dare Coconut Whippet Sticks
These cookies are interesting. They are like a tiny log of biscuit, a pile of coconut on top, and then a nice covering of good chocolate. They taste rather like mini Bounty chocolate bars. The packaging for these is even more wasteful than the cookies above. These are tiny little logs of chocolaty coconutty goodness, but they only put two into each section of this big plastic tray. The tray is wrapped in plastic. And they are in a larger than needed cardboard box. There are ten cookie retaining areas on the overly large tray, which means that exactly 20 little sticks come in each box. If one just threw these little sticks into a box without the tray, the box would be mostly empty. I’m sure there’s a better way to package these nice little coconut sticks without using so many materials. As above, I could recycle the plastic tray and cardboard box (but not the plastic wrap), but it would be better if unnecessary packaging was eliminated. Recycling takes a lot of energy and resources as well as producing these throwaway materials in the first place.

Spoiler, the cookies are not this big and 250 grams means you get just 20.

Cardboard, plastic wrap, and plastic tray make up the packaging for these little cookies.

Each plastic tray section holds exactly two of these little sticks. There are ten sections in this big plastic tray.

20 tiny sticks and you're left with all of this waste.

In conclusion, I enjoyed both of these types of cookies, but I really dislike how they are packaged. I hope that LeClerc and Dare will reconsider how they package these cookies and make the packaging less voluminous and wasteful. I want to eat cookies without feeling guilty about how much waste I'm creating for the landfill and the recycling depot. Ending overpackaging of cookies would make them all the more sweet.

Wasteful Packaging: Knorr Selects Spinach & Artichoke Rice Sample from Well.ca

In mid August, I placed an order with Well.ca, a Canadian online shopping site that has many interesting products including food, vitamins, protein bars, a wide range of baby products, kitchen implements, etc.. I’ve been very pleased with the website so far (their customer service is excellent too), however, there is one aspect of ordering products from them that makes me a little annoyed. When one places an order, depending on how much one has spent, certain samples are offered. One does have the right to refuse the samples, but in this case, I took the sample offered which was a Knorr Selects Spinach & Artichoke Rice side dish.  I was pretty sure I wouldn’t like the dish, but it was free, and with a new baby in the house, a “10 minute” food item sounded like good emergency backup.

I received my order from Well.ca and found the sample. It was packed in plastic (Why? The packet the Knorr side dish comes in is very thick and foil lined with a plasticy sort of outer shell). This is not the first time I’ve received samples from Well.ca that have been overpackaged (one notable example was a Dare REALFRUIT Biscuit Strawberry with Yoghurt sample which was this little fruit bar that was wrapped in cardboard, had a paper coupon, and then a plastic wrapper around all of that). 

The Knorr sample came in a plastic package.

Upon opening the plastic wrap last night (in a fit of desperation of what to eat late at night after finally getting a fussy baby to sleep), I found not just this thick package, but also two different paper inserts. One of them was a large piece of paper with something about entering a contest for a $100 gift card (it didn’t specify what the gift card was for- I mean is it for Knorr products or something more general.  If it’s for Knorr side dishes, I doubt many people will waste the time entering- I certainly don’t have time) and the other was a coupon for more of this Knorr stuff.

When I opened the plastic package there was all of this inside.

My husband and I cooked up this monstrosity last night. The smell of the dry stuff was gross and it was even worse prepared. We tried to improve it by putting some fresh grated parmesan on top and lots of pepper and some salt, but it was unsalvageable and after a few bites we couldn’t eat anymore. Plus, if you’re looking for a 10 minute preparation time, look again. One actually has to bring it to a boil first, then time 10 minutes, then turn off the heat and wait at least another 5 minutes to let it thicken. Anyways, I generally don’t like packaged food and this certainly didn’t make me want to try anything by Knorr again. Bluck!

And Knorr should stop using so much packaging for a sample. This creates an incredible amount of waste. It’s unnecessary. My child’s generation is going to having nothing left but a pile of garbage if companies keep using so much wasteful packaging for all of their products including free samples. Well.ca, being a company focussed on wellness, should perhaps put some pressure on the companies that are sending samples to them to distribute to use less packaging for the “wellness” of the planet.

Overpackaging impacts us all. Now I’m left with a plastic wrapper, empty package, and two pieces of paper, all of which I will never use again and some of which I can’t even recycle.

So much waste.