Gordon Circular - A circular package for home delivery of food

The strong growth of e-commerce in recent years has been positive for the growth of many Swedish companies. Unfortunately, the amount of waste, as a result of the disposable packaging in which home deliveries take place, has increased significantly. E-commerce deliveries of food are often large in terms of volume and their packaging thus generates large amounts of waste which, in addition to burdening the environment, also frustrates consumers. 

Gordon is a leading player in the Nordics within the last mile and carries out home deliveries of food purchased online. The company has developed the basis for a system of reusable packaging for home delivery of food with the aim of replacing the cartons and cardboard bags, intended for single use, that are used today. Gordon currently carries out over 500,000 deliveries per month in four countries, so the potential is therefore good to quickly make a big difference. To enable a transition to reusable packaging for food home delivery, Gordon has identified eight critical system elements: traceability, technology platform, physical packaging, washing solution, logistics flow, business model, consumer experience and sustainability. In the past year, development has taken place in all parts and a first pilot has been carried out. Within this project, the eight system parts must be completed in order to be able to launch the system on a large scale at the end of the project.

Goal

The project's goal is to complete the 8 critical system parts for Gordon Circular: traceability, technical platform, physical packaging, laundry solution, logistics flow, business model, consumer experience and sustainability, and thus enable a large-scale deployment of the system at the end of the project.

Purpose

The aim is to reduce the number of cardboard bags and cartons for home deliveries and instead use a washable reusable bag that is picked up at the next delivery.