While it's true that most consumers choose a meal subscription service based on key factors like ingredient quality, recipe diversity, and customization, it's often equally as important to include sustainability at the top of the priority list when narrowing down options. And while many of today's top-name meal delivery services cover the first three areas without an issue, they're unfortunately lacking when it comes to sustainability.
HelloFresh, however, is the exception to the rule as it excels in all of these areas. Here, we'll take a look at 4 of the major ways in which HelloFresh supports sustainability and continues to be America's #1 meal subscription service in every way possible.
4 Major Ways that HelloFresh Supports Sustainability
1. They Choose Responsible Ingredient Suppliers
HelloFresh only chooses suppliers who continuously put sustainability at the forefront of their operations. These responsible ingredient suppliers are one of the major reasons why HelloFresh is able to produce meals that have a 31% lower life-cycle carbon footprint than those of the same size from a supermarket. Some of the top suppliers HelloFresh works with are The Better Fish, Wonderful Citrus, Colavita, and Pratt.
The Better Fish offers the first-ever Fair Trade-certified ocean-farmed white fish and earned the U.S. Secretary of State’s 2021 Award for Corporate Excellence in Climate Innovation. Wonderful Citrus transforms 40,000 tons of its surplus material into consumable products like juice and pulp, and is on a mission to divert 100% of its waste from landfills in California, Texas, and New Jersey by 2024.
Colavita participates in the Net Carbon Zero program for all imports and uses solar power for all its U.S. and Italy facilities. Finally, Pratt is the world's largest, privately-held 100% recycled paper and America's 5th largest corrugated packaging company that recovers old corrugated containers and mixed paper products for the purposes of transforming them into high-quality packaging solutions.
2. They're Carbon-Neutral
Yes, that's right - HelloFresh is the world’s first carbon-neutral meal kit company. How so? They balance emissions by sourcing renewable electricity for all facilities and offices and offset any remaining emissions to their customers’ doors.
In 2021 HelloFresh sourced 100% of their electricity consumption from zero-emission renewable wind energy, and since 2020 they’ve balanced all emissions via carbon offsets. They also have a shorter supply chain compared to traditional supermarkets and prioritize domestic suppliers as well as buying directly from the source. Not to mention they're always innovating ways to live greener, including retrofitting LEDs in older facilities, monitoring equipment to reduce electricity usage, and installing rooftop solar arrays where possible.
3. They Prioritize Recycling and Packaging Innovations
High plastic consumption can be a major deterrent for eco-conscious subscribers when it comes to most meal delivery services. But, HelloFresh is on top of supporting recycling.
You can recycle their ice packs, numbers 2 and 4 plastic packaging, insulators, cardboard boxes, and meal kit bags. Other recent packaging innovations include reducing 48,750 pounds per week of insulation liners, utilizing a Box Fit system that determines each order's most efficient ice levels and box sizes, and replacing traditional liners with paper “protein pouches.”
4. They Give Back to the Community
HelloFresh is working towards creating a more equitable food system that makes nutrition accessible to the communities they serve. HelloFresh launched Meals with Meaning in 2020 to provide free meal kits to people facing food insecurity in America and distributed 2 million meals in 2022. They also reactivated LimeAid, which is a giving program that supports families and individuals facing humanitarian crises, natural disasters, and other states of food insecurity. And, HelloFresh created Hunger Matters which empowers communities through sharing wholesome, budget-friendly recipes, identifying local food banks and pantries, and healthy eating tips to live better.
