Reuse&Reduce collection
Basic information
Project Title
Full project title
Category
Project Description
The Reuse&Reduce collection presents different reusable and useful products to reduce single-use plastic waste in the kitchen. It offers a smart alternative to disposable plastic bags and single-use plastic containers and lids with several long lasting and environmentally safe products for your daily kitchen routine.
Project Region
EU Programme or fund
Description of the project
Summary
Lékué is a pioneering brand in innovative products that has revolutionized kitchens around the world. We are designers and manufacturers of kitchen products and gadgets, from utensils for healthy cooking, through molds of all kinds, containers to take away... We are based above all on a concept of easy, healthy, and fun cooking that has connected with different gastronomic cultures around the world.
Innovation is the engine of our company and what differentiates us. We create ingenious and functional products to accompany people in their day-to-day cooking.
For a few years we have also worked in terms of sustainability in our impact as a company and, along this path, we also wanted to contribute to the environment through our activity and products. In accordance with our values and philosophy, we wanted to make accessible options that suppose small daily gestures to the consumer that can make a difference in the waste generation in society.
The kitchen is our focus, and we detected that single-use plastics, with a very short life and a great impact on the environment, were very frequently consumed: bags, disposable containers, wrapping paper... And as a result of detecting it, the alternatives that Lékué presented to the market under the Reuse & Reduce collection emerged.
Storage bags, flexible lids to preserve food and containers, boxes for organizing the fridge, freezer, shelves... or cases for sandwiches are some of the ideas that make it up. Made of 100% platinum silicone, microwave and dishwasher safe and available in different formats and sizes, they are designed to cover all those needs in the kitchen that were traditionally reserved for practices that are not sustainable.
The products of the collection are: Reusable silicone boxes, Reusable silicone bags, Reusable flexible lids and Reusable cases.
Key objectives for sustainability
Caring for the environment is one of the issues in which society is taking the most awareness and, specially, single-use plastic waste problem it is seen as a huge concern for the sustainability of the planet. It is a great challenge that, as a collective, we must tackle with the utmost urgency and, as a company, we felt to also offer a service to consumers in response to it.
Our main objective was generating a positive impact with our activity and, in addition, help the consumers in the consecution of their needs: this will be one of the greater concerns of the population in the immediate future and on which more legislative measures will be taken.
There are multiple formats and types of plastics, almost all of them take an average of 1,000 years to degrade, ten centuries drifting, and the worst: many of them we have only used once before getting rid of them.
Since 2020, alternatives to these harmful elements can be found on the market by Lékué.
We have become accustomed to using a multitude of products in our day-to-day life to which we only give them one chance, but we want to demonstrate that there are all kinds of non-polluting alternatives to replace them in our area, the kitchen. Our marketing campaigns guarantee that thousands of people have already joined a new, more sustainable way of cooking, conserving and consuming and our intention is to cover all possible needs with reusable alternatives.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
Practical design and quality are the keys to success. The innovative design is one of the main characteristics we reach in our processes, since it allows it to be different from the rest of the products on the market not only because of its aesthetics, but also because each of the lines, shapes, ribs… and even sizes, have been developed to fulfill a function and thus satisfy the needs of the market. Therefore, design gets us closer to customers and help us to achive a more effective decision-making.
The material is another important aspect in Lékué's career. We work with 100% platinum silicone, a material with many properties, including greater food safety, resistance, and thermal adaptability. It also stands out for being a material that does not leave residue or alter the taste of food.
Silicone is a polymer which is found naturally in sand, quartz, and rocks. Platinum silicone is a type of silicone that uses only platinum (precious metal) as a catalyser, which increases its quality, apart from silicone’s other properties. The safety and quality of each one of its components also makes platinum silicone the ideal material for baby bottle nipples or surgery materials for hospitals. Lékué also purchases its platinum silicone following the strict manufacturing controls that guarantee compliance to the most restrictive regulations for products in direct contact with foods from Japan, Switzerland, Germany, France and the US. All Lékué products are regularly analyzed by independent laboratories to certify that they are safe.
In recent launches, it has also been chosen to combine this material with other more common in the kitchen to offer a greater diversity of products with different textures and colors, whose materials have managed to fit perfectly.
Our trajectory supports us as a referent in quality kitchen utensils and places us as one of the top brands in food safety. Also, our trajectory of awards recognizes us as an icon of design in Spain and in the world
Key objectives for inclusion
At Lékué we aim to facilitate easy and simple access to the kitchen, and, to this end, our concepts are born from extensive research to make the kitchen a space without limitations.
Our purpose is to revolutionize day-to-day processes in the most comfortable way and accessible. We offer solutions designed so that everyone can use our products from intuitive and comfortable way, thus reinventing the classic kitchen utensils and inventing new solutions that can meet real needs and providing them with new and better functionalities.
We consider it essential for the necessary time, effort, and resources to be dedicated towards researching and deepening into the characteristics of our products and into how we can improve them, so they adapt better to your needs. For this reason, our research team has worked on extensively researching the kitchen environment. The different population profiles were taken into account in order to develop products that are appropriate for everyone.
The main objective of the Reuse&Reduce collection is to reduce the consumption of single-use plastics and to promote the use of long-lasting reusable materials on a daily basis by people within the domestic environment both for the preservation of food within the home and for its transport. out of home. We have focused on this area of action since we have detected that they are the most critical points because they are the ones with the greatest use of single plastics and where Lekue has the greatest capacity to offer a great positive impact with a real alternative.
We offer the market a complete, sustainable and reusable solution with an estimated life of up to 10 years.
In this sense, the Reuse & Reduce collection follows these principles and has given rise to simple and practical products for the reduction of single-use plastics without giving up all the design presentations: hermetic closures, adherence and adaptability, flexibility according to use, etc.
Results in relation to category
Since the launch of the collection, sales are performing better each month: they have been sold more than 400.000 units in the total collection.
We have sold, since 2020, more than 100.000 units from our Reusable Silicon Bags and more than 200.000 units form our Reusable Flexible Lids.
This collection are well performing in Europe; Spain, France and Denmark mostly.
How Citizens benefit
Lékué relies on the general public for the phases prior to the product launch. Consumers are voluntarily involved in the product research, development, and testing process to ensure from its conception to its usability. This involvement ensures that we know well the needs of the public and thus adapt our ideas as a result of market and behavioral studies.
We also involve consumers through two-way channels such as social networks or the point of sale to understand the user experience and respond to their suggestions.
Innovative character
There are solutions on the market to provide an alternative to single-use plastics of a diverse nature, but from Lékué we wanted to offer a completely reusable option; utensils themselves that would supply the purpose of the substituted material. Herein lies the main innovation of this collection and of the products that make it up.
The different types of single-use plastics in the kitchen have been studied to be able to detect how, when and how often they are used to offer an alternative designed with every detail in mind, and to be a perfect option to replace disposable materials.
