Lotte Mart & Big C supermarkets in Vietnam using banana leaves to wrap vegetables

Noice.

Zhangxin Zheng | April 03, 2019, 01:36 PM

A Thai supermarket's innovative approach to reducing plastic usage wowed a good part of the world:

But it seems like it is not just the Thais who are replacing plastic packaging with banana leaves.

Vietnamese supermarkets using banana leaf wraps

Three supermarket chains in Vietnam have adopted a similar practice -- Lotte Mart in Ho Chi Minh City's District 7, Saigon Co.op and the Big C in Hanoi.

Shoppers will now be able to buy vegetables, such as spring onions and ladies' fingers, wrapped in banana leaves.

According to VnExpress, a Lotte Mart spokesperson said that banana-leaf wrapped vegetables are only available at one outlet at the moment, but they intend to emulate this at other outlets in the country.

The spokesperson also added that there are plans to extend this practice to fresh meat as well.

Photo from Hoozing.

Photo from Hoozing.

For Saigon Co.op, the banana leaf packaging is available at some of the outlets in HCMC and southern Vietnam.

The Big C supermarket chain started a one-month trial of using banana leaf wraps in Hanoi, and its central and southern supermarkets.

Small grocery stores going green too

However, it is not just the giant supermarkets in Vietnam that are going big in reducing plastic waste.

Smaller grocery stores have also jumped on the bandwagon, such as this store named Tiệm Rau Của Ba in Binh Thanh, a rural district of HCMC.

Photo from Tiệm Rau Của Ba Facebook.

Photo from Tiệm Rau Của Ba Facebook.

Photo from Tiệm Rau Của Ba Facebook.

Photo from Hoozing.

Photo from Hoozing.

Beautiful.

Top photo collage from Hoozing Facebook