The profitability of food retailing is very dependent on maximizing efficiencies throughout the supply chain. One strategy that I have been noticing more and more is the use of heavy plastic shrink wrap to bundle individual items into one big armload.

Grouping items together like this is important for products that are shipped on pallets. That paper bag of flour you are buying was carried to the shelf along with nine of his friends bundled up in plastic shrink wrap. The groups of ten rode to the store on a pallet along with a block of other ten packs all held together with several layers of plastic stretch wrap

Supply logistics vary quite about around the world, so I am not in a position to offer advice about avoiding this kind of tangential consumption of plastic. The sugar that I buy here arrives at my neighbor’s store in a 50kg woven polypropylene bag. The chances are pretty good that it was shipped from its origin in a food grade shipping container. I used to unload these containers at the coffee roastery. They were completely filled with bulk bags. A 20 foot container held about 300 bags that each weighed 150 pounds (see paragraph about hernia from last post). Coffee is one of the few items that is still exported the same way that it was before plastic came along. Green coffee is shipped in jute or sisal bags, many of which are produced in the same countries that grew the coffee. Before our Fair Trade Coffee roastery grew big enough to have its own warehouse, we relied on a logistics company in Toronto. They would fill a tractor trailer with my monthly inventory and this involved plastic wrap to stabilize the pallet loads. My dismay at plastic waste may have gotten a boost from having to deal with all that plastic wrap.

Pre-consumer plastic is not always apparent to the consumer. My best advice is to shop where you can see the inventory so you can make a more informed decision. Of course, you should also try to maximize your use of local products that haven’t been part of all this packaging and transport logistics.

Pre-consumer plastic is more easily recycled than post-consumer plastic but it still goes to the landfills at an alarming rate.