Can you avoid plastic packaging when you take away your favourite meal? Well, yes you can, and here foodpanda shows you how easy it is in these three ways – whether you’re ordering in your food or picking it up. One of the ways is simply opting-out of plastic cutlery - an initiative they pushed out in 2017. Today, the food delivery company is again championing sustainable eating practices with barePACK, a sustainability start-up that provides a way out of single-use containers. Now you can go green and still enjoy your favourite meal. 

1. Opt-out of Single-use Plastics

Nudging consumers to a more mindful behaviour could be as simple as changing default settings on the interface - to opt-out of cutlery. In January 2018, foodpanda became the first app-based food delivery service to launch an opt-out option in APAC. In 2019, foodpanda upped the game: orders were, by default, placed without cutlery.

By constantly educating their customers, only 15%of foopdanda’s customers are now requesting plastic cutlery with their orders. It continues to push the sustainability envelope further by joining the Plastic ACTion (PACT) initiative by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), pledging to remove unsustainable packaging by 2024.

Why is that important? Well, daily, about 8 million pieces of plastic pollution enter our oceans and threaten the survival of marine creatures when they ingest broken-down plastics, or micro-plastics.

2. Go Meat-Free on Mondays

But it doesn't just stop with plastic cutlery. Come Mondays, order a meal from a vegetarian or vegan restaurant and get your delivery on foodpanda free. Now there are plenty of meat-free meals you can go for, including Indian food which offers a wide spread of vegetarian options from lentil and chickpea-based dips and curries. In Singapore, acai bowls are one of the city's most popular picks on foodpanda. The healthy cold bowl is a delicious and satisfying one-bowl meal that combines a brilliant purple Acai berry superfood with crunchy granola, tart fruits and more customisable toppings like a splash of sweet honey.

Earlier efforts to encourage conscious-eating habits saw foodpanda mount major efforts such as removing shark-fin related dishes from all restaurant menus since 2018. 

3. Sign-up for Sustainable Food Containers

barePack's sustainable food containers. Photo: barePack

Next, if you’re picking up your food, cut back on single-use containers with sustainable ones instead. Joining forces with sustainability start-up barePack in 2020, foodpanda introduced reusable containers at participating restaurants. This initiative allows foodpanda customers to opt for their orders to be prepared in reusable barePack containers and simply returning them at selected places.

Here's how:

✅ Download the barePack app and sign up. foodpanda users get 50% off* for their first month using code FP50 (*for new customers)

✅ Select Pick-Up on foodpanda and add your favourite dishes to your cart from Cafe Milligram.

✅ At checkout, use code BAREPACK.** (**for selected vendors)

✅ Pick up your food from the restaurant and show your foodpanda and barePack apps. Easy, right? Order now!

Their ultimate goal is to have all eateries pack food using reusable containers. It's just beginning, but you'll soon find more and more of your favourite eateries joining the list. 

• Any thoughts on eating sustainably? Tell us in the comments below, or write to foodpanda at - sustainability@foodpanda.sg