Tag Archives: Johnsonville sausage

Local Food and Recycling

One of the many great fringe benefits of buying local food is that it can often lead to reduced packaging and therefore a reduced need for recycling. Buying producer-direct at a farmers market is a prime example of this. You buy from a bin, you bring your own reusable bag and bingo, no extra packaging necessary.

That’s ideal, but not always possible. For me that means I’m looking for reduced (or reduced-impact) packaging when no-packaging options aren’t an option. Confused?

Freden Fine Foods

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned having discovered that the meat I’d purchased to make my Liz’s World Famous Pizza came on a non-recyclable tray. (From the label I had surmised that the product would have a Canadian processing plant, and therefore be more locally produced than a product from the US — Johnsonville is a US company. Having looked at the website, I’m not so sure.)

Anyway, I asked Johnsonville about the non-recyclable trays they use, but never got a response. I’m not really surprised. So I did what I said I’d do and bought truly local, this time from Freden Fine Foods. Turns out Freden wholesales to my local grocery store and the store uses recyclable trays for their meat.

It’s not no packaging, but it is reduced-impact packaging. Sweet.

Consumer Advocate: That’s Me and You

I was royally ticked off today by the customer service at Hallmark Cards. I believe in the power of the collective consumer voice, so when later today I discovered that Johnsonville, the sausage people with the irritating commercials, sell products on non-recyclable meat trays, I dropped them an email as follows:

How come you don’t use recyclable trays for your meat products?

I prefer the hot Italian sausage without the skins which I brown for homemade pizza, but I’m thinking of switching to the grocery store brand, because their trays are recyclable. It’s more hassle for me, but worth it when I think that you must go through a mountain of trays every single day in your production facility.

It doesn’t make sense to me that so many trays are making the trip to the dump when there are alternatives.

Let me know…

I’ll let you know what they say.

As for Hallmark, their 1-800 number is by the phone. I’ll be giving them a call tomorrow morning, first thing.