Vegware

Edinburgh based SME Vegware is a manufacturer and global specialist in plant-based compostable foodservice packaging with an annual turnover of over £5million. Their catering disposables are made from renewable, lower carbon, recycled or reclaimed materials, and can all be commercially composted with food waste where this service is available. 

In 2010, when Vegware started forging relationships with composters, their products could only be collected for composting in Aberdeen (1% of the UK’s urban population). By focusing efforts on collaborating with the waste sector, trade waste collections for Vegware’s compostable disposables as at July 2021 covered 72% of the UK’s urban population. 56 UK towns and most areas of Scotland have trade waste collections for used Vegware, including their own collection service, Close the Loop, in the Central Belt. You can watch the journey from café to composting facility in this 360-degree virtual reality video and read this detailed case study on Dynamic Earth.

In May 2020, Vegware launched a partnership with recycling company Paper Round to promote a compostable packaging collection service across London, Brighton and Sussex. The used Vegware goes to Cambridgeshire in-vessel composting facility enVar. In seven weeks it becomes compost, meeting the PAS100 quality specification. An educational webinar was held with Paper Round and enVar in May 2020, attracting over 250 attendees (watch here). This partnership is also featured in the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s November 2020 Upstream Innovation Guide.

Vegware also sells to over 70 countries, with distribution throughout Europe, the Middle East, South America, and the Caribbean, and operational bases in the UK, USA, Hong Kong and Australia. They work with the world’s largest contract caterers and distributors, helping foodservice establishments meet their sustainability goals. For example, in Ireland in 2020 Vegware achieved extra certification with Cre, the trade association representing Irish composters, which means a special Irish logo can be added to their cups informing consumers the cups can be composted via the brown bins all households and businesses are required to have. This educational marking is now on their cups at 105 Tesco stores across Ireland.

2020 has been a stress-test for Vegware as a business. Despite the disruption of COVID-19, they did not halt their Environmental consultancy services. Instead they were more determined than ever to provide sustainable solutions, given the increased reliance on single-use packaging during the pandemic.

Vegware’s Community Fund has been supporting charities and communities since 2009 by donating plant-based packaging and making monthly grants. During the pandemic, Vegware recognised that a new level of community support was required, so they increased their efforts and donated boxes, bags and containers to soup kitchens, food banks, or to organisations delivering care packages to the vulnerable and projects providing meals to children suffering food insecurity during the holidays.

In 2019, Vegware was the winner of the VIBES Service Scotland Award; you can read their earlier case study here.