27 Nov 2024

Keeping grocery bags a local thing

From Afternoons, 1:15 pm on 27 November 2024

A Taupo-based company is working to reduce New Zealand's reliance on imported packaging

Following the single-use-plastic ban in 2019 two childhood friends looked into who was manufacturing paper locally and discovered that much of the paper produced here was exported to Asia, converted into paper bags, and then sent back to New Zealand 

The friends then set up 'Gratpak' and began manufacturing bags here. They now supply 25 to 30 million bags a year to Foodstuffs.

'Gratpak General Manager Stephen Folcarelli talks to Jesse.

Volunteers with donation box with foodstuffs on grey background - food bank, foodbank

Photo: 123rf