Five best reusable sandwich wrappers

For a country that loves a sandwich, we’re remarkably careless with the wrappers, throwing away at least 800m bits of foil or cling-film every year. Erica Buist tried out a few reusable alternatives

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There are almost 200 lunchtimes in a school year. If even half of Britain’s 8.2m schoolchildren take sandwiches to school in disposable wrappers, we’re looking at just shy of 800m wrappers per year. That seems like a lot of waste to generate just for sarnies, and doesn’t even take into account the adults industrious enough to make and bring their own sandwiches to work. So, ever at your service, Live Better tried out some of the reusable alternatives.

1. Keep Leaf

This “litterless lunch” wrapper is £5.95 from ethicalsuperstore.com and looks like a square envelope. You just pop a sarnie in and close the flap – but that means you can’t wrap it any tighter if your lunch is small. We were concerned our sandwich would fall apart inside, especially since we’d used dry ingredients like shredded chicken which are reluctant to band together without mayo. Note: get mayo.

Our first instinct was to wrap it in cling film, but realised that would have rendered the Keep Leaf’s very existence pointless. Mild tragedy did indeed ensue (meaning a few bits of filling fell out), but to be fair we only put half a sandwich in there. Had we packed it a little tighter we’re sure it would have kept it all together.

2. Onya Lunch

These brightly-coloured wrappers are made of recycled PET (polyethylene terephthalate, usually from recycled plastic bottles) and cost £7.50 from onyabags.co.uk. They open out like a treasure map and have a wipe-clean inlay. You fold it up and seal with velcro strips. The presence of velcro strips means you can seal it according to the size of whatever you’re wrapping – sandwiches, samosas, pizza slices, a very small pineapple –so it felt a little more secure than the Keep Leaf. However, it did take a couple of tries before we worked out which order to fold the sides so the velcro strip could find its mate (why did we even attempt it before coffee?).

3. Wrap n Mat

The Wrap n Mat also folds out like a map, which, as the website suggests, you could also use as a placemat. Its outer layer is an attractively checkered cotton, and the food-safe liner is made of PEVA (a smooth, food-safe plastic – with no fibres to trap food particles). This wrapper solved my pre-caffeine sealing problem by sporting a single velcro strip, so whereas it may not be quite as secure (or as big) as the Onya Lunch, there’s no dilly-dallying when it comes to sealing and running out the door. The Wrap n Mat costs £5.47 from nigelsecostore.com.

4. Eco Snack Wrap

These wraps were developed in Australia and manufactured in India, in a factory chosen for its high environmental and and ethical standards. It’s desperately sad to note how difficult it’s become to ensure the various products you use on a daily basis were manufactured somewhere that a) pays fair wages and b) pays them to adults, not children the same age as your own – but that’s what they promise with the Eco Snack Wrap.

The wrap folds out into a diamond shape (or a square, depending on how you look at it, obviously) and seals with one long velcro strip, helpfully labelled “sandwich wrap” on the front, which helps indicate the order in which you fold the flaps. Big points for removing confusion in those critical folding stages that so allude the undercaffeinated or perpetually late.

They have an impressive range of wrappers (food wraps, snack wraps, sandwich wraps) from around £5 to £8 with some lovely designs. The one we’re trying is adorned with camper vans and ban the bomb signs, just in case you want to subliminally channel some hippie values over lunch. The inside is lined with a plastic so soft it almost feels like suede or soft leather. This one was our favourite.

5. The Wrapper

The Wrapper, handmade in Scotland, started its life at local school fairs. It’s another map-opener with a plastic inlay, and comes in various attractive designs – we had the cute pink checker but they come in various colours with spots, stars, army camouflage, flowers, hearts, fish, the alphabet, and, um, skull and cross bones. To deter sandwich thieves by making your food seem toxic, perhaps?

It’s £5.50 from re-wrap-it.co.uk and it even has a label on the front for you to write your child’s name. Or yours. Hey, it’s your wrapper, write whatever you want on it.

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