Beeswax Wraps | Affordability & Functionality

Every school has that parent. You know, the one who spends all day baking kale and quinoa muffins that their child actually eats.

As they corner you in the school car park to tell you how they left a treasure map to this week's lunch box poem, under their kids' beeswax wrapped spinach and hummus bagel, your mind wanders to your own offspring's lunch… Did I manage to scrape all the mould off before I smothered the bread in Vegemite? How many times can I repack the same untouched apple before it goes rotten? What is the trade value of a Le Snack these days?... Hey, I am not the only one to have done the scrapey-scrapey trick!

 

So, I have two questions:

1. How do you get your kid to eat anything that resembles a vegetable?... Wait… How do you get your partner to eat anything that resembles a vegetable? And

2. What is so good about beeswax wraps anyway?

The answer to 1 is simple, you don’t, that requires actually cooking something. I suggest you send both partner and child off to the mother-in-law for their monthly dose of vegetables. That woman can scare anyone into eating anything.

Photo from HoneyBee Wrap

 

There are many claims regarding the benefits of using beeswax wraps, the main one being to help reduce single-use plastics, which by now we should all be aware of and onboard for. Some of the other benefits include being antibacterial, sustainable, compostable and 100% natural… Yes, I want to do my part in saving the environment, but can I also do that in an economical way that actually works?

 

AFFORDABILITY

How does the price of a beeswax wrap compare to that of cling wrap? I don’t recall ever actually buying cling wrap… Does that stuff even run out?... Anyway, a 30-meter roll of Glad Cling Wrap from Woolworths at the moment (15/2/2021) is $2.70, which is $0.09 per meter. That is pretty damn cheap and this stuff lasts forever. 

For comparison, I will be using the latest product added to our sustainability range, HoneyBee Wraps. This product was requested by our customers, so I purchased (yeah my business partner makes me pay for things...rude) a twin medium pack. Each wrap is big enough to cover a single sandwich and the twin pack costs $19.95, equating to $9.98 each. A single wrap, if cared for correctly, can last at least a year, if not more, and if after that time it becomes ratty you can purchase top-up wax, to avoid buying a whole new set of wraps again.

Photo from HoneyBee Wrap

 

Let's do some math:

 

I use roughly half a meter of cling wrap per sandwich, yes I can be more frugal about it but no, I'm lazy and I’m desperate to get the kids out the door in the mornings, I'm ripping off an arms length of this stuff.

There are roughly 200 school days in a year:

A school year of cling wrap comes to $9

A school year of HoneyBee Wraps comes to $9.98

Huh, I am genuinely surprised at how comparative that is. Obviously, it can go up and down on either side. I could choose a cheaper cling wrap or make my own wraps at home with scrap material, but these are currently the products I have on hand.

Say we get a second year out of the HoneyBee Wraps (by purchasing a refresher bar from HoneyBee Wraps, which works out to be about $2.60 per wrap):

Two school years of cling wrap comes to $18

Two school years of HoneyBee Wraps comes to $12.58

Over the course of a year or two, it’s not that much money saved, but it also isn't a huge expense either, to cut one more single-use plastic out of your household for good… But does it work?

Photo by Joleen Brown

 

FUNCTIONALITY

 

How does the experience of beeswax wraps compare to that of cling wrap?

 

1. I don't have to risk cutting a finger on the serrated edge of a cling wrap box. Do they make these things dangerous on purpose, so when you bleed all over it you need to buy a new one?

2. Being a Planeteer genuinely feels good. 

3. The beeswax wraps are actually easy to use. If it is a bit of a cold morning, some warmth from your hands may be needed to get the wrap to stick to itself, and half the time I can’t get cling wrap to stick to itself because I am that good of a housewife OR the cling wrap sticks to itself too good and I have to throw out a ball of the stuff because I cannot unwrap it. 

4. My only problem, so far, is teaching my kids NOT to throw it in the bin. I had the pleasure of watching my son go digging through the trash yesterday to retrieve his wrap. 

5. It is genuinely a product that works! The kids have stopped complaining about stale bread, of course, they have moved on to complaining about something else, but dry bread will not be one of them! 

Using wax and linen to preserve and protect food is not a new invention, it has been around for centuries. It may seem like the latest “craze”, but these things were around well before social media deemed it “cool” and they have been proven time and time again to be a reliable product. Give them a go, start small, buy a single wrap to get a feel for it, no need to buy enough wraps to cover every single item in your fridge. That lettuce is going to die a slow and horrifying death, regardless of it being wrapped because we all know you aren't actually going to use it, you only bought it for show. 

You can find our current stock of HoneyBee Wraps here.