Last year through our TOAST Circle initiatives, we gave 4,751 garments a second life - one repaired, exchanged, renewed and reworn item at a time. Now, our approach to circularity is extending beyond the lifecycle of garments and into packaging.
In 2023, the UK saw the accumulation of around 5.4 million metric tons of paper and cardboard packaging waste, alongside approximately 2.3 million metric tons of plastic packaging. While a portion of this waste was recycled – a glimmer of hope amid the larger problem – much of it still found its way to landfills or incineration.
With reuse and repair guiding our passage of growth, we’re delighted to announce a partnership with Kvatt, a start-up focused on reducing single-use packaging waste in e-commerce. We’re piloting a solution that gives you, our community, the opportunity to join us in these efforts.
With this initiative, UK customers can choose Kvatt’s reusable packaging at checkout. “Through our service, your TOAST item is delivered in a returnable mail bag with instructions,” explains Kvatt’s founder, Gianfranco Bächtold. “You just attach the prepaid label on the back, drop the empty packaging in any post box around the country, and it comes back into our system.” Once it arrives at Kvatt’s facility, the packaging is sorted, cleaned, and reused up to 10 times. It’s a simple idea, but one that’s grounded in thoughtful research, data, and real-world experience.
After moving to New York to study industrial design, Gianfranco was exposed to a concerning yet widely overlooked problem. “Growing up in Switzerland, I didn’t have access to instant delivery services. But when I moved to New York, I discovered next-day delivery,” he reflects. “After a few months of ordering online, I was left with piles of packaging in my apartment – plastic, bubble wrap, cardboard. It wasn’t just unsustainable; it was inefficient.”Troubled by the idea of designing something to be instantly disposed of, Gianfranco’s focus shifted. He built his thesis around the problem of packaging waste, and by his final year of study, had already attracted several clients who appreciated his out-of-the-box thinking. By the time he arrived back in Europe, Gianfranco saw a promising path forward for his fledgling company. “I thought, “‘You know what? Let's give it a try.’ I wanted to see where it would lead me.”
Before long, this momentum carried Kvatt to the Blue Earth Summit, an annual convergence of innovators, corporations, and campaigners with a shared goal to regenerate the natural world through social impact and innovative business practices. Gianfranco connected with the event’s organisers in its nascent days, after Kvatt reached the final stages of a start-up competition. “I had the chance to pitch our solution at the Blue Earth Summit in Bristol, and we’ve stayed in touch ever since,” Gianfranco recalls. “We recently relaunched our partnership to help grow the brand within the industry and support each other in various ways.” That early exposure and feedback were invaluable, uplifting the team and offering insights that gently shaped the evolution of their product.
In the years since, Kvatt has continued to develop at the intersection of design and function and has ambitious goals of becoming a pioneer in the space. “When you start thinking about reuse, there's an opportunity around the quality of what we can create,” says Gianfranco. “Single-use packaging is optimised for function and cost, whereas we have much greater freedom with the design of our product. It's higher quality because of its nature – because it needs to be renewed.”
Led by his background in design and eye for detail, Gianfranco has shaped Kvatt’s reusable mailer bags to be both visually appealing and built to last. Each one is named ‘Charlie’ – a way to give the bags an identity and personalise the experience. “We see the bags as members of our team, working towards our mission,” Gianfranco laughs. When a ‘Charlie’ reaches the end of its life as a mailer, it’s sent to a third-party partner Kvatt works with to be transformed into a road cone. Soon, users will be able to scan a code to follow their mailer’s journey to that point: how many times it’s been reused and the stops it’s made across the UK.
The small charge for Kvatt’s service covers the cost of returns logistics, and cleaning and refurbishing the packaging for reuse. Typically, around 70% of customers who opt-in follow through with returning the bag, so this contribution also helps offset the 30% who do not. Currently, the pilot programme allows only TOAST orders with two or fewer items to be sent in reusable packaging, but we look forward to continuing our collaboration with Kvatt to broaden this offering. Together, our goal is to gradually redefine what packaging can be: not just something that carries an item to its destination, but something that signals meaningful change.
“‘Kvatt’ means ‘goodbye’ in Icelandic; it’s a name that resonates with the company’s vision to one day say goodbye to waste. For now, the focus is on routine, tangible changes that collectively add up. “I truly believe that circularity is the better way forward,” says Gianfranco. “We all want to make a positive change, but someone has to help support that transition. By offering this service, we hope to make it easier for people to choose the circular path.”
Read more about our Returnable Packaging.
Gianfranco Bächtold wears the Cotton Hemp Herringbone Jacket and Duncan Cotton Hemp Herringbone Trousers.
Words by Bébhinn Campbell.
Photography by Marco Kesseler.
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