La Cuisine des Champs: reusable packaging for more sustainable catering in crèches

This article is part of a series dedicated to exploring the journeys of the winners of Go Circular 2. In this series, we highlight the inspiring initiatives of these winners. One of them is La Cuisine des Champs, part of the ‘transition’ category, which is developing a circular approach centred on reuse.

La Cuisine des Champs: Towards Sustainable Catering for Nurseries Every day, La Cuisine des Champs prepares 2,700 meals for nurseries, with a strong commitment to offering healthy, seasonal dishes made up of 75% organic and/or locally sourced ingredients. The meals are prepared using cold chain catering, a method where meals are cooked in advance, rapidly cooled to low temperatures, and then stored cold. They are then safely packaged—without risk of bacterial growth—in single-use polypropylene trays, ready for transport. Meals for young children must have a shelf life of at least 7 days and are currently packaged in a protective atmosphere. This method extends the shelf life of food while maintaining freshness and nutritional quality in plastic trays. However, it generates a significant volume of waste. To reduce this environmental impact, the company is now seeking solutions to package its meals in reusable deposit containers.

Reusable Stainless Steel: A Promising Innovation Reusing stainless steel trays helps reduce fossil resource consumption and the environmental impact associated with the production and recycling of single-use plastics. Moreover, stainless steel is recyclable at the end of its life. It also limits the risk of transfer between food and containers, which is a major health benefit. Additionally, setting up a cleaning system for stainless steel containers creates job opportunities for people in socio-professional integration, particularly in Sheltered Work Enterprises (ETA).

While reusable stainless steel is already used in collective catering for meals with short shelf lives, using it in protective atmosphere packaging presents a real challenge: identifying the most flexible and effective method to adapt it to large-scale production, while ensuring a sustainable and food-safe solution. A long initial phase of the project helped identify existing solutions, validate their transferability for nursery meals, and conduct real-world tests to assess each option. Ultimately, La Cuisine des Champs is moving toward acquiring a machine that “wraps” stainless steel containers in a thin plastic film—this being the most flexible solution. It can handle the entire production volume and allow for a phased transition to stainless steel. Although this solution is more sustainable than single-use plastic trays, the use of a thin plastic film requires monitoring to ensure the overall impact remains positive.

The Logistical Challenges of Transitioning to Reusables However, the transition to reusable containers is not without challenges. Moving from a single-use model to a reusable one introduces new constraints, particularly in cleaning and transport. The project also involves adapting work methods within the team, modifying the packaging machine for stainless steel trays, raising client awareness about reuse, and organizing the return and cleaning of containers. La Cuisine des Champs has two options for cleaning trays: outsourcing the task to service providers or internalizing the process by investing in a cleaning machine and staff. Space availability then becomes a concern.

Additionally, the extra weight of stainless steel trays compared to plastic introduces logistical constraints, particularly in transport capacity, potentially requiring more vehicles and labor.

Beyond investment costs (machine, trays, etc.), the additional costs related to cleaning and transport are estimated at 50 cents per meal.

Integrating Reuse Clauses in Public Procurement: A Key Lever To encourage the sector to change its practices, integrating reuse clauses into public procurement specifications appears to be a key lever for ensuring the viability of this model. By mandating the use of reusable packaging, such as stainless steel containers, these clauses would not only ensure the adoption of sustainable practices but also their long-term normalization.