About Palm Leaf
Palm Leaf™ Tableware is an eco-friendly alternative to single-use-plastic and paper products.
Whether it is the perfect birthday party you were planning for or that picnic by your favourite place, our sustainable and eco-friendly products will always come in handy.
Our products come in various shapes and sizes for your diverse needs – be it a social gathering or a corporate event; garden parties, barbeques, or at restaurants and weddings.
Suitable for hot & cold food, Palm Leaf™ is leak-proof and can be used to serve appetisers, entrée, main course, desserts - we mean it all! Our disposable tableware - plates, trays and bowls that come in square, round, rectangle and oval shapes; and the size ranges from as small as 3.5” (sauce plate) to as large as 24” (serving trays).
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Sustainably manufactured from naturally shed Areca leaf, one of the sturdiest leaves known to mankind, Palm Leaf ™ has 0% chemicals and is 100% bio-compostable in 12 weeks.
Our products are free from harmful bacteria (such as E-Coli) or fungus as the dried Areca leaf gets cleaned extensively with high-pressure water jet. It is then heat-moulded to form desired products, and finally UV treated before packaging.
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Shown below is a macro view of the manufacturing process of Palm leaf ™
Areca palm plantation
Collection of fallen Areca leaves
Pressure wash with clean water
Finished Products
Further Cleaning
Moulding: using heat press
About Us
PALM LEAF ™ is a family-run small-business based in Woking, in the green Surrey. Our mission is to ‘Save the world for our next generation’ by introducing eco-friendly and affordable alternatives to single-use-plastic tableware for parties and events.
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The idea originated in 2018, when we witnessed excessive use of single-use-plastic products at home, work, supermarkets, and even faith-based institutions. Most products that we buy for our consumption even today, is wrapped in some form of plastic.
In March-2021, the European Parliament passed a new law banning many single-use-plastic products from Jan' 2021 including plastic tableware. The EU is now tackling the 10 single-use plastic items, most commonly found on Europe’s beaches, and is promoting sustainable alternatives.
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The passing of the above law served as a very important milestone for us to invest further in sustainable and eco-friendly alternatives in the tableware category.
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Although the UK had already decided to part with European Union back in Jun-2016, we were certain that this law will be enforced in the UK as well.
Plastic has some key advantages. It is lightweight yet strong, can be transparent or printed with colours, stiff or flexible; therefore, it’s a good choice for packaging and has also been popular in making disposable tableware.
However, most plastic products are not easily recycled, and are either sent to landfill, where it takes 100s of years to biodegrade, or they end up in ocean where they pollute and threaten the existence of sea-life.
We have seen the wide usage of natural leaf plates (called “pattals” i.e. plates made of leaf) in social events across North India and banana leaf plates in South India. Areca leaf plates are a wonderful enhancement to those plates, as it is more sturdy and has a beautiful finish.​
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We decided to bring this areca leaf eco-friendly alternative to single-use-plastic tableware to the UK market, a product that could still boast of the many features that plastic products provide.
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By mid-2019, we started interacting with factories based in Village communities in South India that manufacture the areca plates for the local market. These factories provide the much-needed employment to underprivileged men and women from the village communities.
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Having researched about the kind of plates and bowls used at parties and events in UK, we designed a range of 16 products and worked with the help of our suppliers for large scale production. Palm Leaf in UK was launched in Sep-2019 from our humble Garden Shed, and we have been expanding ever since.
We take pride in working closely with our manufacturing plant and suppliers in South India. They excel in making the finest quality Palm Leaf disposable tableware to suit the needs of our customers in the UK.
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Although Covid impacted the industry heavily, and the subsequent lockdown closed all restaurants and stopped all events from happening from Mar'20 to Jun'20, and once again Nov'20 to Mar'21, but we had a fantastic summer in 2020, and we are proud to have helped many retail and business customers go-green with Palm Leaf Tableware.
