1500 deli pots

I spent months last year looking for suitable packaging for the deli. I hated the idea of contributing to the mountain of waste packaging produced every year. The decision to avoid plastic carrier bags was easy. There are plenty of recycled paper bags which will do the job just as well, if not better. But I also needed something to put olives in. It needed to be food safe, hygienic, light and leak proof. The only choice seemed to be between different shapes of plastic pot made with different thickness's of plastic. But then thanks to a tip from a friend, I fond them......biodegradable deli pots. I got some samples and for three weeks a small pot of olive oil sat on my kitchen work top. One week it was upright, the next upside down and for the third week, propped up on its side so the oil sat on the joint between the pot and its lid. It was only in week three that it leaked. After four days of inversion a tiny amount of oil had worked its way around the seal between the lid and the pot. But that was an extreme test and I had expected it to leak within a couple of hours (which is the longest a pot is really likely to be in this position). A further three weeks later and the pot of oil was still in tact (and not decomposing).

The experimentation was over and a decision was made. I would not be responsible for the creation of pots that would be around hundreds of years after me and I could be confident that my customers wouldn't have problems with leaky pots.

That was last summer, and yesterday my first supply arrived. The deli pots I've chosen are made from plant (usually corn) starch and will degrade on a compost heap in about two months. Rather than producing pollutants as they break down they will enrich the soil. Having seen how much space 1500 deli pots take up I am more pleased than ever that mine will degrade.