While we all love our konbini – and visitors to Tokyo do, too – it's no question that there’s an excessive amount of plastic used in all that food and drink packaging. In an effort to reduce plastic waste, convenience store chains have started introducing eco-friendly packaging, like FamilyMart’s sustainable bowls, launched earlier this year for its ready-to-eat pasta meals. Now, the konbini chain is introducing a new set of musubi (aka onigiri) rice balls which will be sold in eco-friendly packaging.
FamilyMart’s eco-friendly initiatives are all part of its 40th anniversary this year, and the konbini chain is running a campaign called ‘40 Good Things’ to celebrate the milestone. The initiative aims to reduce plastic consumption, food waste and greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The introduction of the new and improved packaging is just one of the long-term goals to help extend food expiration dates.
The new packaging will be used for four new rice balls: salmon (¥128), Japanese mayo tuna (¥118), tori gomoku (a mix of chicken, burdock root, carrots and shiitake mushrooms; ¥124) and mentaiko (spicy pollock roe) mayonnaise (¥124).
The rice balls will be available at approximately 16,600 FamilyMart stores nationwide, however, there’s no word yet on when they will be hitting the shelves.
The convenience store chain says that the shift to eco-packaging will help cut its annual plastic use by 70 tonnes – a good start to tackling this ongoing issue. FamilyMart is also not the only konbini making a change. 7-Eleven has already started wrapping its rice balls in bioplastic and Lawson has switched plastic coffee cups for paper ones.
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