No Plastic,
fantastic!
samova is one of the pioneers in the food industry in the fight against packaging waste.
A peaceful revolution against packaging waste

In line with the motto "»No waste, only taste!« we work with the manufacturer Futamura to use the 100% garden-compostable material NatureFlex™ for the envelopes of our Express and Space teabags.
Our space and express envelopes are made from NatureFlex™ film, which is produced from wood pulp from sustainably managed forests.
The renewable content in the finished film is usually over 90%. NatureFlex™ films not only fulfil all global standards for industrial composting, such as DIN EN13432, but are also approved for composting in private households in accordance with the »OK Compost Home« standard. The envelope films decompose on average within 42-50 days and can be used in the garden, in the worm bin and also in the composting plant. The tea bags can also decompose within a few weeks after use and are disposed of in organic waste.
Our space and express envelopes are made from NatureFlex™ film, which is produced from wood pulp from sustainably managed forests.
No Plastic, fantastic!
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Compost instead of plastic - the story
In the early days after founding samova in 2002, Esin Rager, a mother and staunch supporter of organic products, completely refused to use tea bags. She only offered loose tea in designer storage tins made from durable and completely recyclable tinplate. This was followed by the "Refills", refill bags for anyone who had already accumulated a tower of tins at home.
A few years later, in response to repeated requests from the customer Lufthansa, Esin Rager developed the samova Express collection in paper tea bags with paper envelopes. Some time later, customers from Asia and the cruise industry also requested a loose-leaf single portion in a pyramid bag, which was securely packaged against moisture, essential for storage in tropical climates.
This was followed by the samova Space bag "Range" made from the net material Soilon, which is made from corn starch and is biodegradable. The envelope was made of plastic, there was no alternative yet. But Esin Rager was not satisfied with that. In 2014, she met Joachim Janz, the German sales manager of the Japanese company Futamura.
It had just taken over the British brand NatureFlex, which had invented a film material made from wood fibre. NatureFlex film is not only garden-compostable and rots in an average of 50 days under completely natural conditionson the home compost heap. Thanks to the nature of the material, it even protects the food many times better against harmful external influences and internal flavour loss of the ingredients.
If you don't have your own garden or balcony, you can easily turn our samova tea bags and NatureFlex films into valuable humus soil with a stylish indoor worm composter in the office or at home. Together with raw vegetable, fruit and unvarnished paper waste, they form the best food for hard-working compost worms, which can be ordered from nordwurm.de, for example. They also produce so-called »worm tea« (it really is called that :), which you can use to fertilise your plants.
Esin Rager decided to convert all the films used at samova to NatureFlex - a lengthy and costly process, as there was not yet much experience with the technical use of the films on printing and packaging machines. In addition, the colours used and the amount of ink applied also had to be adapted to garden compostability in order to exclude all possible harmful residues.
It took until today to completely change the packaging of the tea bags. In November 2019, our sales partner Seeberger was able to present its professional customers in the catering, hotel and office sectors with tea bag ranges that are fully equipped with garden-compostable envelopes and the final design packaging for the first time.
Which brings Esin Rager to her next project: samova refill bags for loose tea that can be composted in the garden without leaving any residue. To be continued …
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samova is a founding member of the Circular Packaging Initiative.
samova switched its tea bag envelope films to the garden-compostable material NatureFlex™ back in 2016. What our customers received with enthusiasm is still met with scepticism by professional waste disposal companies in many German municipalities. In many cases, they refuse to accept the municipal organic waste bin. The reason given was that it was primarily a communication problem and that it was not possible to educate consumers to only throw garden compostable films in their organic waste; given the difficult information situation, too many plastic films would also be disposed of.
»Garden compost and worm bin: Yes! Organic waste bin: no...?« samova would not be samova if we were satisfied with this statement. Together with the four established brands Rapunzel, Sonnentor, The Nu Company and Denttabs - all of which also use certified compostable materials - we founded the Circular Packaging Initiative in summer 2020. In our role as a pioneer, we want to address the controversies surrounding the reality of waste disposal in a differentiated and transparent manner. With Sonnentor and samova, two competitors are even joining forces on this topic.
Circular packaging initiative
First corporate initiative for compostable packaging in Germany. Our aim is to dispose of this packaging in an ecologically sound manner.
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Making peace
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We regularly celebrate diversity, friendship and modern tea culture with a lavish party together with partners and friends.
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