Munch Cupboard, and their sister brand, Nil have been leading the way in innovative reusable homewares since 2014 from their home base in Wellington. Their aim is to empower households to change the world by eliminating waste and using reusables across all areas of the home.
A Woman of Influence
Munch founder and CEO, Anna Bordignon was working as a commercial lawyer in the UK, but it wasn’t until she moved back to New Zealand and had her first child that she started to reflect on what she was passionate about: children, the environment, cooking and business for good. With Anita Roddick, (founder of The Body Shop) as her inspiration, and a newly obtained MBA, Anna started her move into the entrepreneurial business-for-good area and launched Munch Cupboard.
Eight years later, Anna has been a finalist in the 2019 Women of Influence Awards and Munch has been a finalist in a host of New Zealand awards including: NZ Artisan Awards 2019, The Wellington Gold Awards 2019 and the Sustainable Business Network awards in 2018.
Recycling Silicone
Munch have recently launched a Silicone Send-Back Scheme, the first in the Southern Hemisphere. They will accept any brand and any (food) grade of silicone to be locally repurposed. They’ll even give you a $10 credit to use on their website when you return your old silicone! This could be an old spatula, silicone muffin case or baby bottle teats that are torn or no longer being used. This type of product stewardship is necessary for a sustainable, circular economy says Anna:
“More products will be made out of silicone going forward as people move away from plastic. But we need to recycle this type of product otherwise we will be in the same position that plastic has put us in.”
Anna Bordignon, founder of Munch Cupboard
1 Million Pieces of Plastic Saved
This year Munch is celebrating a huge milestone - over 1 million pieces of single use plastic have now been saved from landfill replaced by Munch products! This is based on the number of reusable products they’ve sold - such as Beeswax Food Wraps, Beeswax Snack Bags, Litterless Snack Bags, Litterless Sandwich Wraps - which are all New Zealand made and eliminate the need for single use packaging.
Other things we love about Munch!
Since 2015 Munch have been working exclusively with the GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) programme, which produces Fair Trade and Organic certified fabrics from India.
The Munch production team is made up of a strong workforce of 40 women and mothers find it difficult to get employment. Munch brings the work to them by sending them boxes of materials to work on at home in their own time.
“Our outworkers are often women who find it difficult to obtain work but have skills that we love. So we bring work to them and make it easy for them to obtain an income. In many instances they would normally be excluded”
Munch measure and offset their carbon footprint through Ekos, which makes them a Carbon Friendly Certified company. They are also working towards Living Wage and BCorp accreditation.
Judy making Munch organic beeswax snack bags
Find out more about Munch’s Initiatives
Register to send back your unwanted silicone to Munch or find Silicone Send Back Collection points around NZ.