Bye Bye, Buitoni!

Bye Bye, Buitoni!

One of the first companies I called was Buitoni. This is because I am a pesto addict. (“Hi, I’m ____, and I’m a pesto addict.” Oh, true.) The absolute favorite pesto delivery system for this past year has been the Buitoni Wild Mushroom Agnolotti; I buy two packages of that, one of their pesto sauce, and it’s just a heavenly dinner that I have serious trouble not succumbing to absolutely painful gluttony over. It ain’t cheap though! That Agnolotti (What the heck is that, anyway? It’s basically a half-moon shaped ravioli, Buitoni! What’s with the fancy Italian name? And doesn’t that root “agn-“ mean having to do with lamb, anyway?) is twice the price of the tortellini I used to buy for their pesto, and there’s less of it (a LOT less!). Plus, recently they have reduced the amount of product in the package even more, without reducing either the amount of packaging or the price. So already I was starting to twinge a bit with guilt, buying that. But heavenly! SO tasty.

The on-hold wait wasn’t too bad for Buitoni, the hold music was tolerable, the interruptions in the moderately annoying range, and the woman who answered was apparently American and really very service-oriented; very helpful in attitude, although she didn’t have the answer right away (and when she answered the phone, she started to say the name of another company—apparently customer service for Buitoni is also customer service for some other brands, but that’s fine). Well, after Ms. Helpful spent some care and effort finding out (and thank you very much, I wish I’d gotten her name--she really was a great customer service rep!), the sad answer was returned that no, the not-reduced-for-volume packaging was also not recyclable, at all.

My closing spiel, for the sad outcomes:

“Thank you so much for the information, and please pass on to the management the message that we are SO sad that we will not be able to buy this product anymore, until the packaging is either fully and easily recyclable, or compostable.”

Ms. Helpful Buitoni Person cheerfully offered me coupons. Huh. I HAD just said that we would no longer be able to buy the products. . .but she had been so helpful, I hated to say no. And perhaps they make SOMETHING that is sold in a reasonable package. So I thanked her again, reminded her to pass on my message, and we’ll wait for the coupons. I guess if there aren’t any recyclably-packaged Buitoni products, we can always recycle the coupons.

The thing is, I thought I would be really sad and upset if I found out I would have to give up the Wild Mushroom Agnolotti, but what I really felt—was freedom. My thought, hanging up the phone, was not “Oh shoot, we can’t buy that anymore” but “Okay! We don’t have to buy that anymore!” It was a relief from the pressure TO buy something—something very tasty, but that really was too expensive for what it was anyway, and—truth be told—not vastly more satisfying than any other kind of pasta with yummy pesto on it!

So here’s something else surprising that I’ve been learning. I thought this would be hard—not just logistically, but, you know, emotionally. I had braced myself for these (admittedly small, but perhaps cumulative) experiences of loss and grief, knowing that many of our favorite products would not be sustainable choices for our future. But what I’m actually finding—at least so far—is that every single thing we’ve had to give up, we’ve found something even BETTER—and so far, also CHEAPER—to replace it! This is so NOT what I was expecting.

Case in point: Pesto Delivery System.

Since I said bye-bye to Buitoni, I’ve bought the DeBoles Organic Spinach Fettucini (yummy!), which is packaged in a box that is fully recyclable as paper if you tear out the little plastic window (which is a 5, dangit, but we’ll collect those and come up with some nefarious plan for them later). DeBoles’ customer service lady was SO wonderful, she took my number and said she would call back with all the specifics of how to recycle, and she really, really did! If we lived in an area with reasonable recycling, even the little window would be no problem.

The entire package of DeBoles fettucini costs less than ONE of the Agnolotti did, and the ultimate amount of pasta it makes is more than the TWO Agnolotti packages I used to buy. We make the fettucini, top it with Kroger Private Selection Basil Pesto (glass container, steel lid, fully and easily recyclable), which is HALF the price of the next higher pesto sauce (in practical fact, it is a quarter of the price, since you can get two meals out of one jar), and to me, it is even more delicious (less sodium, more FLAVOR!). We crumble walnuts on top, serve with a big field green salad with vinaigrette of your choice—delicious and perfectly satisfying, and NO garbage left except the tiny plastic window. We’ll deal with you later, little window. . .