A Philly creamery has a warm and fuzzy solution for sustainable shipping

There are pros and cons to living in an age where you can ship pretty much anything (convenience, supply-chain chaos), but there is one decided downside: packaging waste. Plastic bubble wrap, cardboard, packing peanuts, polystyrene foam, and more help prevent damage during shipping but ultimately wind up in a landfill. In 2018 in the U.S. alone, containers and packaging waste amounted to 82.2 million tons, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

This poses a challenge to eco-minded business owners like cheesemaker Yoav Perry of Perrystead Dairy in Kensington. You can pick up Perrystead’s aged cheeses and fresh schmear locally, but about half of the creamery’s sales involve shipping, to both individual customers and wholesalers nationwide. Perry would like to grow direct-to-consumer business to 85% of sales, meaning even more shipping.

» READ MORE: Perrystead Dairy brings creative cheesemaking to Kensington

Getting all this cheese from point A to point B is an expensive, packaging-heavy ordeal. Perry and crew overnight boxes of cheese so that they arrive in a 12- to 14-hour window, whether they’re destined for Tullytown or Tulsa. They’ve tried various forms of insulation to keep the goods cool, including mylar, EPS (Styrofoam), and recycled paper; each had its flaws.

Earlier this year, while visiting the U.K., he encountered a new packing material to test out, one that’s also very old: wool. At Neal’s Yard Dairy in London, cheese is shipped in cool wool wrapped with air pillows and occasional ice packs.

The premise had instant appeal to Perry. “It’s sustainable, it’s biodegradable, it’s actually friendly to the animals — you’re giving them a haircut just as they’re getting into the warm season, which also conserves water because they don’t need to drink so much.” And because wool is pliable, it can be packed tighter, potentially resulting in smaller, cheaper shipments.

But would the wool keep the cheese cool enough on a 12-hour journey? Perry designed an experiment.

He boxed up three packages — each with cheese, an ice pack, and a USB temperature sensor — to compare the efficacy of mylar, EPS, and lamb’s wool used for sustainable insulation. He left them in the hot sun, then opened them up after 36 hours to see the results, which he shared to Instagram.

Not only was the cheese insulated in wool colder than the mylar- and EPS-packed products upon opening, the USB sensor showed the wool package’s temperature had grown colder over the first 12 hours. It presents the possibility for two-day shipping, giving Perry’s customers a more economical option.

“For my customers in California that pay $25 for cheese and $56 for shipping, it’s gonna be a lot more palatable,” Perry said.

As a result of the experiment, Perrystead Dairy will be shipping its cheese exclusively in wool starting this fall. The soft, dense fleece will assuredly be the second-best part of each shipment. If customers suggest crafting options to reuse it, Perry will be happy to share them.

“You can stuff this in a pillow! It’s real wool,” he said.