Plastic and pawned pizza boxes are currently offered in two pizzerias.
The pizza box lock is clever. Eeva Paljakka
Kotipizza is the first in Finland to try reusable pizza boxes. Iltalehti decided to test how to deliver pizza home in a plastic box.
There are only two pizzerias in Kotipizza’s trial, the Jyväskylä Keljonkeskus and Järvenpää restaurants.
The recyclable boxes are not on display in the Järvenpää pizzeria, and there is no advertisement for them anywhere, so now you can really say that the experts know.
The round box holds one regular pizza. A deposit of six euros is added to the price of the pizza, which you get back when the pizza box is returned to this same pizzeria in Järvenpää. Another option is to download an application that allows you to borrow a pizza box for free.
The deposit for the pizza box is six euros, but you can get it for free if you download the app. Eeva Paljakka
After the pizza purchase, you have a couple of weeks to return the plastic box. I began to wonder when I would drive past the pizzeria next time or if I would have to make a separate return trip. Immediately there was extra trouble.
When I get my hands on a warm pizza box, I’m convinced of its properties again. A pizza will definitely stay better in a hard box than in a flimsy cardboard box. When I order pizzas for the whole family and stack the boxes on top of each other, the cheeses of at least one pizza can be found with a fairly high degree of certainty in the cardboard lid. The plastic box does not have this problem.
At home, the base of the pizza is still nicely crispy, even though 15 minutes have passed since leaving the pizzeria.
However, you have to be careful with the plastic box, because pizza must not be cut in it. It is of course understandable, but at the same time inconvenient: If the pizza is not intended to be eaten all at once, it would be convenient to store the pizza in a box, but during cutting it should be lifted out of the box.
The box is also not allowed to be put in the oven or microwave, but you hardly put a cardboard box, so there is no difference between the boxes here.
Before returning the recyclable box to the pizzeria, it must be rinsed. The cardboard box can be folded into trash after use, the plastic one is left spinning on the kitchen table.
You have to be careful with the plastic box: you can’t cut pizza in it, you can’t microwave it or put it in the oven, you have to wash it before returning it. Eeva Paljakka
The test had a conflicting result. The plastic reusable pizza box has its advantages, but it requires more effort than the traditional ones. Maybe, despite that, I could carry my pizza in it next time.
Kotipizza’s responsibility manager Sara Anttila says that Kotipizza is running a follow-up pilot with a reusable pizza box.
At the end of 2022, Kotipizza restaurants were the first to test reusable pizza boxes in Finland in cooperation with Finnish circular economy startup Kamupaki.
The ongoing pilot started at the end of February and will tentatively continue until the end of March.
According to Anttila, testing in Järvenpää has started at a slower pace than in Jyväskylä.
Keski-Uusimaa was the first to write about the pizza box.