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Cape Herb & Spice, a division of South African CPG group Libstar, has introduced a new innovation for its grinder.

The new design removes the need for a tamper-evident shrink seal by building the function into the grinder itself across two levels. The shrink seal is largely non-recyclable, sales and marketing executive for Cape Herb and Spice, Shelley Barnard, said. Removing this adds a “major boost” to the sustainability of the unit. Cape Herb & Spice’s new grinder is said to save two small African elephants’ worth of plastic, for every million units produced. To use the product for the first time, the tab on the top is broken but remains attached. This releases the lid and allows the consumer ti use the grinder. The tamper band on the base of the grinder will split off if the top is removed. The Cape Herb & Spice reduced-plastic grinder design is said to be a world first, with almost 90% of the new grinder components now highly recyclable. A further innovation is the shift to more commonly recycled and lighter weight plastic for the grinder head. Recognising this, Cape Herb & Spice, together with their grinder manufacturer, came up with a new tamper-evident grinder design that is: The product uses polypropylene – a widely recycled plastic – for the grinder head with just the mechanism remaining acrylic increasing the widely recycled component to make up 87% of the grinder. Barnard added: “We’re excited to have seen a call from consumers demanding a shift to a principled, ‘people-planet-first' approach. This is driving an industry-wide effort to reduce plastic waste, especially in packaging. We’ve spent a long time devising a design that is tamper-evident, while significantly reducing plastic use. We believe this is a groundbreaking prototype that has been patented and we are hoping it will be adopted by our peers, globally.” The tamper-evident grinder is also designed to be recyclable worldwide.