Quack Snacks

Feed Wild Ducks Responsibly

duck food

Quack Snacks: “Ducks love them. Kids love them too!”

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Duck FoodWith many thanks to Lucy and the Kids Of The Wild team for testing out our new plastic free packs of Quack Snacks – the verdict?

“Ducks love them. Kids love them too!”

We thoroughly recommend a visit to the Kids Of The Wild website – and not just for the great tips for feeding wild ducks responsibly!

You can feed wild ducks responsibly too, with our letterbox friendly and plastic-free Quack Snacks boxes of wild duck food for just £4.99 inc delivery.

Reducing Plastic Waste: Your response and what we’re doing about it!

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At the beginning of January we asked if you thought it was worth us reducing the plastic in our packaging – here are some of the typical responses:

With a definite vote in favour in ditching plastic, we sourced some new packaging materials and sent some trial boxes to volunteer customers and independent voices.

The trial boxes aimed to make sure the new packaging performed as well as our existing materials and test if people really could accept the no plastic compromise – a little less duck food in each pack, since the new packaging doesn’t mould to our boxes so readily as plastic, so we can’t quite squeeze as much in.

Here’s just a sample of the feedback we’ve had:

 

“Totally fine with the amount per pack if it means less plastic.”

So with many thanks to all those who’ve sent us their feedback and/or tested out our trial boxes, we’re going to remove the plastic from our Quack Snacks boxes asap and test out some new options for our standalone retail packs. To that end we have already:

  • Replaced plastic packaging tape with a 60% bio-based tape on all boxes right away.
  • Recruited a new European supplier of non-plastic bags for our packs.
  • Redesigned all our box inserts and sent them to print.

The new “no plastic” Quack Snacks boxes will be launching before the end of January – initially via our own online Quack Snacks Duck Food Shop, but with other channels following soon after. Once on sale, we’ll work on the retail packs.

So very soon, you’ll not only be able to feed the ducks responsibly, you won’t have any Quack Snacks plastic waste either!

 

We’re thinking of reducing plastic in our packaging – but do you think it’s worth it?

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Plastic-reduced packaging trial

Last year, in a bid to provide duck feeding fans with food that’s better for ducks and as convenient as bread, we launched our Quack Snacks boxes. They proved to be more popular that we could have ever imagined.

However, in our bid to reach a low target selling price of £3.99 (inc standard delivery!) we made an uneasy decision to use plastic in our packaging. Last year we used hundreds of plastic bags for our portion packs and what has often felt like miles and miles of plastic sticky tape to seal our boxes.

On one hand, many ducks have enjoyed healthier snacks and many humans enjoyed their Quack Snacking, but on the other, there’s a fair bit of plastic gone into people’s bins. Or we hope they at least went into bins.

So this Christmas we’ve been testing some reduced plastic packaging options – with the best balance of cost, availability and fulfilment ease being glassine bags for our snack packs and a new paper-backed packaging tape. The glassine bags are made out of pure pine wood cellulose which is 100% recyclable.

The problem is that the new tape and bags cost four times our existing packaging materials – and we can’t fit as much duck food in each pack.

Our existing plastic bags spread out so we can fit that bit more into every spare bit of space in our boxes. The non plastic bags are less flexible, so have to contain a little less so they all still fit in the box.

If we were to increase the depth of our boxes to accommodate fatter bags, they’d move from being “large letters” in the eyes of Royal Mail and become “small parcels”. That would cost an extra £1.32 via standard second class post. Without significantly raising our £3.99 price point, we’d make a loss on every box.

Also, bigger boxes may mean less letterbox friendly – so Royail Mail might not be able to deliver them if you’re out. That’s not at all convenient for many!

So, reducing plastic in our packaging means either:

1) A bit less duck food in each potion – 40g instead of 50g (Our retail packs have always been 40g portions!)

2) A sizeable price hike and potentially a box that doesn’t fit through your letterbox anymore.

Do you think it’s worth it? Or should we stick with plastic? We’d really appreciate your thoughts – please comment below or email us at quackers@quacksnacks.com.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and respond!