With a hectic schedule, is a sustainable diet accessible to the average consumer? For students studying at UCL, there are affordable lunch options that are sustainable, packaging free, and right on your doorstep. Planet Organic is found on Torrington Place, a one minute walk from UCL. Whilst the number of upmarket products is considerable, cheaper options are available.
For lunch, two options are available for £4.95 with a student discount. These are the three bean chilli (my favourite) and the cauliflower curry, self-served with brown rice. The container is massive and will definitely keep you going for a low price. You can even bring along your own container. These are vegan options bought from a company committed to sustainability.
Planet Organic has both a food-to-go section and a supermarket section, with the mission to sell organic, natural, and sustainable food. They therefore donate their food waste to London shelters, and recycle as much as possible with fully recycled paper bags and food containers made of a sugar cane waste material from their cafés. Furthermore, they have encouraged their suppliers to use re-usable delivery boxes, which saves around ten bales of compressed cardboard a day.
In 2015, they launched Unpackaged, a way to buy loose products with no packaging, by refilling your own containers. Containers are weighed prior to filling with Unpackaged working out as cheaper than packaged alternatives. Since then, mainstream supermarkets such as Waitrose, M & S, Tesco and Sainsburys have all introduced unpackaged sections in some stores. Sustainable diets can therefore be cheap and easily accessible to the average consumer.
