Tasmania’s Bulk Nutrients puts sustainability first

As business has boomed for Bulk Nutrients in recent years, the Tasmanian based company has kept its impact on the planet low. Now the biggest customer-direct supplier of sports and nutritional health supplements in Australia, each month Bulk Nutrients navigates over 30,000 orders, posting parcels to loyal customers in cities and regions all across the country.

With their customers at heart, and sustainability at its core, Bulk Nutrients is working together with Australia Post to find the best solutions for the planet. We talk to Jess Crowley, General Manager of Bulk Nutrients about their sustainability story and the many ways they are putting the environment first.

Checking the supply chain

Sustainability is a key pillar for Bulk Nutrients. Being a volume product, and mindful of the distances their parcels are shipped, Bulk Nutrients strives to make every part of their business as sustainable as possible. To help them achieve this, Bulk Nutrients is a member of the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation.

Having already reached their target while also abiding by the requirements of the 2025 National Packaging targets,to have all our primary product packaging recyclable and eliminating unnecessary packaging Jess says: “We looked at our whole supply chain. Everything from when we buy our products, and what packaging is part of that, to how that packaging can be reused, reduced, or recycled. Through to how we make our products – what sort of packaging we use to have our powders in, and then what we send them in to the customer.”

Getting the parcel packaging right

One of Bulk Nutrients’ key sustainable features was looking at their Express parcel satchels. Being a food product, Jess says there were a few things to balance. “It had to be robust enough to arrive in one piece. We wanted to incorporate branding but also we needed to make sure that what it was made out of wasn’t going to add to the waste stream,” she says.

Initially, Bulk Nutrients had investigated compostable satchels. However Jess says: “The biggest issue with compostable satchels is there isn't that end-of-life pathway for them yet.”

Bulk Nutrients looked into different types of materials and after investigating Australia Post’s independent Packaging Life Cycle Assessment and testing alternative packaging samples on their customers by sending, they reached a packaging solution they were happy with.

“So rather than us having to start from scratch and find out all that information for ourselves, we were able to leverage our partnership with Australia Post. They could provide us with the data and give us some insights which helped us to make our decision,” Jess says.

“Using that research, we decided to go with Australia Post’s 80 percent recycled plastic satchels which can be recycled as part of the REDcycle program – and then turned into something else,” she says. With over 30,000 orders a month, the reduction in virgin plastic use and the amount that can now be diverted from landfill is significant. 

Partnering with REDcycle

Showing their full commitment to sustainability Bulk Nutrients’ partnered with REDcycle in 2019. The sustainable program collects soft plastic at REDcycle bins in supermarkets across Australia, which is then used to make recycled plastic products. Because soft plastics aren’t usually accepted by council recycling, REDcycle has been instrumental in diverting huge amounts of waste from landfill. Through REDcycle, recycled soft plastics can be turned into other things – furniture, decking, bollards, road base. “A protein powder bag can’t be repurposed in the same way as say a plastic drink bottle. So having a pathway for it to go on to a second life is really important,” Jess says.

Buying recycled plastic products

As well as using their recycled plastic satchels to send parcels, Bulk Nutrients have bought recycled plastic products for other areas of their business to ensure a more circular economy. “When COVID started and we needed hand sanitiser stations, we bought REDcycle ones because they make them out of plastic that has gone back into the stream,” Jess says. Finding a Tasmanian company that similarly creates furniture with post-consumer plastic waste Jess says: “We bought that furniture for our outdoor areas – which was a really nice thing to be able to do.”

Encouraging customers to play their part

As a proud partner of the REDcycle program and advocate for sustainability, Bulk Nutrients has been keen to get customers involved. Jess says they promote the REDcycle program to customers in their newsletters and on their socials. “Not just to say that our satchels and product bags can be REDcycled, but to promote the program overall.” As well as recycling their Bulk Nutrients soft plastics, they encourage their customers to recycle all their household soft plastics at the same time.

The big picture

Being sustainable, Jess concludes, isn't just important to our customers, it's important for everyone. “It's important for us as a business operating in Australia both from a customer perspective and from a doing-the-right-thing perspective. And from an environmental as well as a cost perspective. We know that looking after the environment and what we can do now to mitigate any changes that we're going to experience in the future with climate change, waste, and the massive issues with landfill, are really important for us – for business sustainability and environmental sustainability.”