Secret Spice Society Boox Boxes

Looking good and sharing a story

Great packaging has power — most importantly, the power to communicate. We’ve seen it in action: our packaging shares Curio’s story and mission to support farmers, create community, and inspire culinary creativity.

From our inception in 2015, we’ve had a strong visual identity. In 2022, we built on that heritage with a branding refresh across our entire line of products. This year, we wanted to apply that update to our popular monthly subscription, the Secret Spice Society. Each month, Secret Spice Society members receive a delivery of one or two spices with exclusive recipes, tips, and a note from our founder Claire.

It’s been a big project, but we’re excited to announce that this September, subscribers will receive their monthly delivery in a newly designed, member-exclusive, zero-waste Boox shipping box. Hats off to Ityng, our in-house designer, for her beautiful work!

Thinking inside the box

What is a Boox? Boox shipping boxes are designed to be returnable for reuse many times in a zero-waste system, and they require no packaging tape to construct or seal — eliminating one more single-use element in the process. Boox boxes are made from recycled materials and are also 100% recyclable once they do reach end of life.

While the switch from cardboard to plastic may seem counter-intuitive, Boox has done a full third-party life-cycle analysis (LCA) to confirm the sustainability of their products. They worked with a company called ThirdPartners that uses the leading global source of carbon footprint coefficients to analyze the environmental impact of a Boox compared to a cardboard shipping box. The LCA analyzed different scenarios, including a single Boox used ten times for ten shipments versus using ten cardboard boxes that were recycled after one use. 

The analysis included the impact of manufacturing, transportation, and end-of-life processes. While the carbon footprint of producing a Boox is higher than a comparably sized cardboard box, the Boox benefits start to kick in with even relatively low customer return rates. At higher return rates, the impact is significant. When a Boox is used ten times, it has just 29% of the carbon footprint of a cardboard box. Booxes are also 44% lighter than cardboard, resulting in 44% lower transport emissions. Overall, the LCA showed that using Boox Boxes reduces environmental impact by 70% at scale.

Boox Return Places are numerous and conveniently located across the US, UK, and Canada, with more countries coming soon — Return Places can be found inside retail stores like Staples, Ace Hardware, Ulta Beauty, and many others. Boox boxes fold flat for easy storage, so subscribers users can hang on to their booxes for as long as they like before making a trip to drop them off, and do so when they’re planning to go near a Return Place instead of making a special trip. The booxes are then sent back to Boox for cleaning and reuse, closing the zero-waste loop. Booxes that are beyond reuse are recycled and made into new booxes.

Stewardship 

To quote Kermit the Frog, ‘It’s not easy being green.’ As a Certified B Corp,™ being environmentally responsible is one of our central values. We're excited to switch to Boox for e-com shipments to support our shared mission of being good stewards of our resources and the planet.

To learn more about Boox’s process and environmental credentials, visit their website here, or read the LCA by ThirdPartners here.