As some of you may be aware, the Government has implemented a plastic ban for single-use plastics in the Hospitality Industry. So as we are in February, this is the point we will now start pushing our stock of plastic disposables down and introducing alternative products.
Traditionally, in Japan, Sushi is typically served in a plastic tray, clear lid, and placed in between the different Sushi pieces are plastic Baran Grass sheets, this is a long-standing tradition with Sushi since before the introduction of plastic. They used certain leaves to split up Sushi, the natural version had anti-microbial properties which kept Sushi preserved and providing longer lasting freshness. The other purpose was to ensure that tastes of certain Sushi pieces do not mix with other options.
Unfortunately, this is long-standing tradition of Baran Grass is something that we will never be able to introduce now in recognition of this traditional practice. We will see if we can locate natural leaves to include in our Sushi to serve this purpose, however this is something we will have to cost up and see if it is financially viable. My biggest concern is keeping our prices low for our customers.
As you have noticed, we started with removing our Sushi trays and replacing them with card alternatives, while this is not as visually pleasing as our original Sushi trays, these are still a viable option and we are still constantly looking out for better alternatives to the current design we are using.
Our current single-use cutlery stock is being dwindled down with orders, however, I will state that the current cutlery option is fully recyclable and uses biodegrade-able plastic. I will look into alternative cutlery options for our Ramen products, however, I do not believe there will be suitable alternatives, we may have to omit this cutlery permanently if no suitable alternatives can be sourced, we will still continue using our Bamboo Chopsticks.
Our current single-use sauce containers are almost out of stock, our suppliers are starting to slowly remove all plastic options, I am currently in discussion with this Supplier responsible for this, as I need a sauce container that will not degrade quickly when it contains Shoyu, I also need to discuss with them, a product that will not leak during transport. Whilst our current plastic options are not 100% leak-proof, they are definitely better than the current alternatives. We may have to trial various products until an ideal alternative is found.
We apologise for any issues that can occur from the change over of plastic to alternative packaging.
Any price increases that may occur for the switchover will purely be because of our inability to adsorb those costs and instead have to be relayed to the customer, we have currently taken less profit from each order to ensure we keep our final cost to the customer as low as possible. To give you some sort of an idea of the current cost differences, our Plastic Sushi Trays cost 11pence per container and lid. Our card alternative Sushi Trays cost 44pence per container, plus we also have to include a greaseproof layer to prevent the Sushi from sticking to the card base, we also are unable to stack as many Sushi into a paper bag as we could with plastic, so for larger Sushi orders, we have to use more paper bags to transport this food with.
Thank you for your understanding and support of our business.
Blue Oak Bistro.