Made in Ireland Sustainable Christmas Hamper ECO-paq's

Everything is delayed this year. Basic commodities are in high demand and this filters through to difficulties in securing packaging. A veritable ‘smorgasbord’ of under-appreciated ingredients in your Christmas Gift Baskets and Christmas Hampers had been preordered in anticipation of such shortages.  

Alas wicker, which needs to be ordered more than a year in advance experienced a doubling of price, COVID struck the weaving workforce further delaying its production, the container blockage in Suez meant there were delays in collections from China and finally, now we are seeing stresses in Rotterdam and Felixstowe container ports with docking and drivers in shortage.      

So our solution was “NO PRICE INCREASES FROM LAST YEAR” and the way to do it was through the early roll out of our ECO-Paqs across most of the Christmas Hamper Range.

We were a lot busier shipping gift baskets around Ireland during the lockdowns. We were lucky that as a small family business we live near our warehouse and as anybody that runs a small business will know, you have to be able to perform all aspects of the business. So our reserves of wicker baskets were utilised out of season.

Nevertheless, we still have thousands of larger Fine Wicker Hampers, such as Christmas Traditional Banquet Hamper or the Christmas Traditional Grand Hamper. However, for most of the Christmas 2021 range, the container will be our ECO-Paq.

Lashings of colourful silk ribbon and a cute Polar Bear Message Ribbon make it look the part, and of course our strict editing of product quality is guaranteed.

In addition, our bulk purchasing in 2020 meant that we have enough packaging to ensure that your Christmas Hamper Packaging looks as exciting to open as it is for your taste buds.

Next year, we will be launching hundreds of new baskets all painted in a high quality matte white sheen in a variety of sizes to ensure that whatever the occasion throughout the year, there is the perfect Gift Basket available. However, since replacement costs will be so high and shipping is so expensive, it is possible that the days of wicker basket containers are numbered.

As a company, we have a goal of striving to be more sustainable in our operations, and our output. We already keep waste to a minimum within our warehouse facility, yet we felt that now was the time to introduce sustainable packaging into our gift baskets and gift hampers.

We know that our Irish customers are always looking for new ways to reduce their own carbon footprint and help the environment, so we wanted to offer some options of gift baskets and gift hampers that suited that demand. 

Reducing Waste Within our Operations

Every business is different when it comes to their sustainability strategy. This is Basket’s Galore’s unique story.

1) Volumetric Space and Delivery

You might wonder how volumetric space plays a role in sustainability, however it makes a huge impact. Over the past 20 years of packing gift-baskets and gift-hampers in Ireland, we have learnt how to intelligently pack our gift-baskets and gift-hampers to make the best use of the space within. We pack as much into our gift-baskets and gift-hampers as we can fit, this means there is no empty voids inside the gift, and ensures customer satisfaction. 

When it comes to delivering our gifts in Ireland, we are happy to use DPD who are striving to be the most sustainable delivery company. DPD have reduced their CO2 emissions by 18.8% since 2013, and aim to reach 30% by 2025. (DPDgroup, 2021)

2) Appropriate Sized Products

We minimise the use of packaging and maximise the value of a gift-basket or gift-hamper by being able to put in larger products with less proportionate packaging. This way, you can be happy knowing that you are not purchasing a gift essentially filled with air. Small products normally tend to have rather large packaging proportionate to the size of products within. Firstly, we believe this is a waste of materials and secondly, the customer is disappointed with the size of their gift. Both two bad options!

3) Understanding Our Customer

As your purchase is a present being sent to someone else, we know your gift-basket or gift-hamper has to look the part, and have all the bells and whistles. So don’t be concerned that us using less packaging, or more sustainable packaging means that your gift wont look good. Quality is what drives our operations above everything else, and we haven’t been around for 20 years for no reason! Each and every gift-basket and gift-hamper goes through a quality control process to ensure standards are being met. Once the masterpiece is finalised, it is tied up with a beautiful satin ribbon. 

A customer testimonial which really stood out to us was from Andrew, N, “Their production and quality of the gift-baskets is phenomenal. I love getting gifts for people however I'm not great at knowing what to get but this, so far, has been the greatest help when choosing something.” It is reviews like this that remind us why we go the extra mile for each and every one of our customers.

What makes our Great Taste Branded ECO-paq’s so special

1) Aesthetic Value

We didn’t want our sustainable boxes for our gift-baskets and gift-hampers to have a typical plain and boring, kraft appearance. It was important for us to create a unique presentation style specific to our hamper business that hasn’t been replicated before. 

This led us to the creation we have today. We came up with a tasteful monochrome effect across the ECO-paq’s. The unique monochrome captures the essence of the regional Irish beauty where our individual products come from, with historical hints of Ireland sprinkled throughout its design. Our ECO-paq’s have a high presentation impact upon arrival and their premium quality is depicted in a beautiful way. 

Our ECO-paq’s are by no means a cheap option of gifting, we ensured that they were a durable, high quality material that maintains our standards of high quality for our customers. 

2) Utility Value

We know that at Christmas time we end up with an abundance of packaging from all of our gifts. We didn’t want to add to that problem, so we ensured that our ECO-paq’s could be easily folded down for recycling and won’t take up much space in your recycling bin. Disposal was an element we had in mind when creating our ECO-paq’s, because it is a recyclable material, it was a must that the product is easy to dispose of and doesn’t impact the environment negatively. 

However, if the recipient did decide that they loved the presentation of our unique ECO-paq and in fact they wanted to keep it, that is also an option. Our ECO-paq’s are made of durable cardboard so they can be used for storage.

3) Green Value

Small changes to reduce our carbon footprint make a big difference in the grand scheme of things. We are always making efforts to do this but we felt introducing a completely new sustainable ECO-paq was a great way to advance our sustainability strategy. 

Our Philosophy at Baskets Galore

We have always tried to reduce our carbon footprint as much as possible in different ways. 

As a company, we only produce one black bin bag of landfill per week across our warehouse, office and digital suite. Nobody wants to look at a landfill site, especially when you live in a country as beautiful as Ireland. Keeping landfill to a minimum allows us to keep our Irish countryside beautiful and free from air and water pollution.

Our company vehicles are all electric from our forklift, to our cars. Not only does this reduce the cost of running the vehicle, allowing us to be more efficient. It also reduces the use of fossil fuels, again improving the quality of air that we breathe in every day.

We make massive efforts to recycle our waste from product packaging. Our waste goes into our own crushing bale to reduce the size of our waste and increase space in recycling centres. As a company we only produce 20 tonnes of cardboard per year from all of our operations including supplier packaging.