Why Your Packaging Setup Matters More Than Ever
If you run a restaurant in Australia right now, your packaging choices aren't just a branding decision — they're a compliance issue. New South Wales banned a broad range of single-use plastics in November 2022, with further restrictions rolling in from November 2023. Victoria followed with its own phased bans. Queensland has staged bans running through to 2025. And the federal government's National Plastics Plan is pushing toward a near-elimination of problematic single-use plastics across the country by 2025.
That means polystyrene containers, many plastic-lined cups, plastic straws, and disposable plastic cutlery are either already banned in your state or soon will be. For restaurants — especially those doing any volume of takeaway or delivery — getting your sustainable packaging setup right isn't a "nice to have". It's table stakes.
The good news: making the switch is genuinely straightforward when you know what you're looking for. Here's how to do it properly.
Step 1 — Audit What You're Actually Using
Before you order anything new, spend 30 minutes walking through your kitchen and front-of-house with a notepad. Write down every single piece of disposable packaging you touch in a service: containers (hot and cold), lids, cups, cutlery, straws, bags, sauce cups, napkins, greaseproof paper. Most operators are surprised by how long that list gets.
For each item, note three things: the material it's currently made from, the approximate quantity you use per week, and whether it's subject to your state's current or upcoming bans. This audit becomes your shopping list and helps you prioritise — there's no point swapping your napkins first if you're still running polystyrene containers out the back.
Pay particular attention to your high-volume items. A busy café going through 500 coffee cups a day has a very different cost equation to a sit-down restaurant that sends out 80 takeaway containers on a Friday night. Volume drives unit economics, and getting bulk pricing right on your top three or four items will do more for your margins than agonising over every SKU.
Step 2 — Understand Your Material Options
Sustainable packaging isn't one thing — it's a category with meaningful differences between materials, and those differences affect price, performance, and what you can actually tell your customers. Here's a plain-English breakdown of the most common options in Australian food service:
Sugarcane (bagasse): Made from the fibrous pulp left after sugarcane is juiced, bagasse containers are genuinely compostable to Australian standard AS 4736 (industrial composting) and many also meet AS 5810 (home composting). They handle heat well — suitable for hot food up to around 95°C — and have good rigidity. They're one of the most cost-effective eco alternatives at scale.
Kraft paper: Unbleached kraft paper is widely used for bags, wraps, and some containers. It's recyclable and — when uncoated — compostable. Be careful with items that have a plastic inner coating marketed as
