It was a passion for healthy food that led entrepreneur Monica Meldrum to make a career switch from working in manufacturing and operations for Boral to establishing her own line of healthy, organic snacks for children.
It was equally her passion for ensuring every aspect of her Whole Kids range complied with the brand’s focus on health and responsibility that led her to ensure the packaging was as 'natural' as the contents.
Following a trip to Sumatra to deliver aid resources to the region’s inhabitants, Meldrum, winner of an NAB Women’s Agenda Leadership award, was inspired to found the Whole Kids range to change the health of Australian children through the provision of organic snack products.
The Whole Kids range of healthy snack foods is certified organic, additive free and allergen-friendly, and is currently served as the kids' packs on Qantas flights, as well as in IGA supermarkets, school canteens and hospitals around the country.
Meldrum told Food & Drink Business that her determination to ensure the range ticked all the right ethical boxes led her to consider the packaging’s attributes to be as important as the contents.
“As an organic food manufacturer, we are continually looking for the most environmentally friendly and sustainable packaging alternatives available for our products,” she says.
While she had a choice of supply sources for the main packaging material – Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified cartonboard – her options were more limited when she searched for suppliers that could also provide environmentally friendly films to pack the individual snack treats in and organic inks to decorate the cartons.
“We know of local packaging companies that are starting to use FSC-approved boards in their printing process, but biodegradable films are, however, a little more difficult to find and use due to shelf life impact, print quality and a range of other variables that need to be considered in packaging the overall product,” Meldrum says.
“But we really wanted to use vegetable-based inks [which] helps us to avoid using toxic inks so that we are providing a truly chemical free product to our customers.”
Meldrum's search led her across the Tasman to NZ cartonboard manufacturer Pakworld. “It supplies FSC mixed-source product, and with FSC certification we are able to trace all our packaging back to the sustainable forest it came from,” she says. “But just as important, it could also print our packaging using vegetable-based inks.”
Meldrum says that having got her brand
and packaging mix to her liking, she is now considering extending the
range as well as building sales for her snacks in overseas markets.
