Boiled, mashed, baked or fried…it’s well known that the versatile spud has a wide range of uses. But now one more can be added to the list – magazine wrap.
As part of improving its green credentials, the National Farmers’ Union is now using waste potatoes for a slightly different purpose, offering readers of its monthly membership magazine a starch-based postal sleeve for their next edition.
British Farmer & Grower, will now be delivered to members in an environmentally-friendly potato starch polybag instead of a plastic polywrap. The new ‘bioplastic’ sleeve is 100% biodegradable and replaces crude oil with potato starch in the manufacturing process.
The starch-based wrap material has a limited shelf life but has a softer and frosted feel and appearance giving it the qualities of a premium material.
All 46,000 NFU members will be mailed a copy of the January 2019 magazine covered in the new wrap, which is produced from potato starch from waste potatoes.
Decomposable
NFU chief content editor Paul Bradley said: “As the original friends of the earth farmers play a massive role in enhancing Britain’s natural environment.
“So it is important to us to constantly look at ways that we can improve our environmental credentials in our membership magazines too.
“What better way of doing this than by using a farming product to create a decomposable magazine packaging wrapper.
“We hope that other magazines will follow suit and start swapping plastic for potatoes.”
