TRIA: Growing Sustainably with Earth-Friendly Food Packaging

A sustainable packaging company in Singapore is committed to designing takeaway boxes that’s attractive, functional and compostable for F&B brands. 

If you’ve packed food from Singapore’s BreadTalk, Toast Box, and CRAVE Nasi Lemak, you may have noticed their use of earth-friendly packaging. Created by TRIA, a sustainable packaging company in Singapore, these takeaway boxes were designed to be attractive, functional and compostable.

The Greek word for number 3, TRIA strives to connect consumers, the environment and businesses with a closed-loop solution that benefits all three stakeholders in sustainable products and services. 

Keeping prices affordable while offering extensive customisation options, TRIA makes it easier for food companies to go green by controlling the design, development and manufacturing phases of production. Constant R&D is also conducted to improve and develop sustainable solutions at a competitive price. 

Growth of TRIA

Focused on supplying sustainable food packaging to several F&B brands islandwide, TRIA clinched the Gold Award at the Pentawards 2018. The award-winning product is CRAVE Nasi Lemak’s packaging revamp. 

Paying tribute to a rich Malay heritage, TRIA redesigned CRAVE Nasi Lemak’s takeaway boxes with a cost-effective option that was paper-based. As an eco-friendly new packaging solution, the popular Malay cuisine brand successfully avoided sending over 40 tonnes of plastic to landfills every year. 

 Additionally, with financing from Validus Capital, a peer-to-business lending platform, TRIA could expand operations and increase capacity in creating sustainable food packaging solutions. Validus enables SMEs in Singapore to maintain their cash flow through low-barrier financing, such as invoice financing, purchase order financing, and working capital loans.

Disposable Food Packaging That’s Truly Sustainable 

TRIA also developed TRIAkraft products and the Bio24 food waste recycling programme. As sustainable solutions for disposable food packaging, these initiatives offered a range of sustainable disposable packaging and tableware, including packed carriers, lunch boxes, cake boxes, cutlery and cups.

Made from recycled fibre, TRIAKraft eschews the need to cut down trees for food packaging materials. TRIA then sees the process through from design to manufacture. Keeping prices affordable, this prevents waste from ending up in the landfills, and further reduce the handling of bioplastic waste in industrial composting sites.

Bio24, a hassle-free programme that helps businesses recycle food waste, provides restaurants with single-use foodware made from bioactive polyester derived from plant-based sources. At a glance, these products may look like single-use plastic. The difference lies in the fact that, Bio24 foodware can be decomposed within just 24 hours once it is placed in the Bio24 digestor along with food waste. That means restaurants can throw away foodware together with the food waste, saving time, manpower, and waste segregation costs. 

Getting F&B Brands Onboard 

Unfortunately, not all F&B companies were open to exploring eco-friendly options. Quoted in The Business TImes interview, TRIA’s founder Ng Pei Kang revealed that businesses were not quite open to adopting sustainable food packaging practices. 

“For that, we applied empathy to the development of our products and offerings,” he shared. “We have to be sensitive to the value proposition of the F&B players, and offer a solution that matches up.”

To make it easier for companies to go green, TRIA keeps prices affordable, even while offering extensive customisation options to differentiate F&B brands from close industry competitors.

Going Earth-Friendly in Singapore

Later in 2019, the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources, together with the National Environment Agency, will be launching the Zero Waste Masterplan. Aimed at improving the management cycle of food and packaging waste, the initiative is committed to closing the waste loop in Singapore. 

With companies like TRIA integrating sustainable practices into existing business approaches, the private sector will be empowered to do its part in helping Singapore achieve its zero-waste goal with Earth-friendly food packaging.