Marks & Spencer (M&S) has become the first UK high-street retailer to use a new water-saving packaging for delivering Valentine’s Day bouquets to its customers.
The company is using modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) to seal flowers in an airtight bag, meaning that no water is used at all for transportation – from depot to door.
By using the packaging for its Fairtrade Dozen Roses, M&S will save more than 10,000 litres of water over the Valentine’s period.
The MAP technology helps slow down the respiration rate of the flowers, almost putting them to sleep while they are travelling to customers. Then, when they are removed from the bag, cut and put in water, the blooms are woken up, says the company.
Using MAP also helps to lower the M&S carbon footprint as each bouquet takes up less space, meaning more can be packed into each lorry.
The move, part of the company’s Plan A initiative, will mean 25% less lorries being needed to deliver these particular bouquets to customers over during Valentine’s Day.
“Both M&S and our customers are always looking for ways to save water and MAP is a great opportunity to significantly reduce consumption in a simple, effective way,” said M&S flowers expert, Charlotte Curtis.
“We’re hopeful that MAP will be a big success that’s rolled out across lots more of our home delivered bouquets in the near future. Trials are already underway and proving successful, to make sure that this happens soon.”