Urgent action required
Sir, As your leader regarding the need to make plastic more sustainable points out, urgent action is needed. While recycling and biodegrading are part of the answer, we also need to find more sustainable ways to make plastic.
Most plastic packaging is made from fossil fuels which are non-renewable. At Bulldog, we have already changed our tubes to contain sugarcane plastic. From a renewable and responsible source, sugarcane also has the advantage of capturing carbon dioxide as it grows.
Nick Parker, head of marketing, Bulldog Skincare for Men
Adapt to survive
Sir, In response to ‘Is the market to blame for the woes of Jamie Oliver & co?’ (24 March, p12), it’s common for brand owners to place the blame anywhere but where it belongs when a business or a brand fails. Markets are fickle. Customers can be promiscuous. There’s nothing new here.
The inability to read both markets and consumers accurately and a limited desire to anticipate and adapt often has more to do with it.
Casual dining today is under enormous pressure from a challenging menu of fast-changing consumer tastes, an exploding oversupply of choice, and the growing disruption of home-delivery aggregators like Deliveroo and Just Eat.
Those that are agile enough to respond and adapt continuously and can provide an offer that is relevant, clearly distinctive and desirable are most likely to survive. As we have seen with Jamie’s Italian, those that can’t will fail.
Robert Thackery, head of strategy, FKC
Going beyond plastic
Sir, Cutting down on plastic is becoming a national obsession, and brands are looking to launch more sustainable products. This should be applauded. But in many instances, brands are missing the mark.
The Co-op’s pledge to use recycled plastic bottles is a great start, but still uses plastic. Why can’t it look into alternative materials, such as the newly-launched tin cans the Natural History Museum will soon sell its own water in? Pepsi’s Drinkfinity Pods are negated by the fact the flavoured plastic pods are harder to recycle than standard bottles, as they have to be posted back to a central recycling hub by the consumer.
Shoppers aren’t stupid. To really develop a sustainable strategy, brands and supermarkets need to start launching products that go beyond plastic.
James Roles, sales & marketing director, Five by Five
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