Brown paper, string, and no charge for either.
Gift wrapping, which almost every retailer sells as an upgrade and which costs about eleven pence. Ours is free, it is the same on everything, and there is exactly one option because a wrapping menu is a decision nobody wanted to make.
What everything arrives in.
| Layer | What it is | What happens to it |
|---|---|---|
| The outer | A plain cardboard courier box | Recyclable kerbside. No plastic tape |
| The wrap | Unbleached brown paper and paper string | Recyclable, compostable, and it looks better than foil |
| The void fill | Shredded card from the shop’s own boxes | The same card that came in, going out again |
| Jar protection | Corrugated sleeves, no bubble wrap | Recyclable, and it survives a courier |
| The card | Printed on 350gsm board | Recyclable, and people keep them |
| The label | Paper, with a paper adhesive | Goes in the recycling with the box |
Why there is no charge and no choice.
Paid gift wrapping is a strange product. It costs a retailer pennies, it is sold for three or four pounds, and the customer is being charged for the retailer’s own packaging decision at the exact moment they are already spending money on somebody else.
So it is free and it is automatic on anything marked as a gift. There is no wrapping menu, no premium paper, no ribbon upgrade and no option to have it in a different colour, because every one of those is a decision imposed on somebody who has already made the only decision that mattered.
The one thing you do choose is the card, and that is because the card carries your words rather than ours.
What you get
- Brown paper and string, on everything gifted
- A printed card with up to two hundred characters
- No prices anywhere on anything they see
- A packing note that says gift rather than invoice
- The same wrapping whatever it cost
What you very much do not
- A wrapping charge
- A choice of papers
- Ribbon, foil, glitter or cellophane
- Plastic tape, anywhere
- Any indication of what you spent
If you want it to look like more.
Choose the crate rather than the box
Twenty-two pounds on a hamper, and people keep them for years.
Have the card printed and posted separately
Four pounds. It arrives before the parcel, which is the right order.
Handwrite the card
Four pounds, genuinely by a person, limited to about forty a day.
Add a tea towel
Eight pounds, and it does more work in a box than anything else at the price.
Or send less, better
One good jar, wrapped properly, beats four indifferent ones. This is the actual advice.
Wrapping, questioned.
No. Nothing that ships as a gift carries a price — not on the packing note, not on the card, not in any email they receive.
Yes, one tick. About one in twenty do, usually because they are wrapping it themselves.
All of it, kerbside, including the string and the tape. It is the one part of this operation that has been genuinely audited.
No. It is a hundred and twenty-five litres of oak in a bonded warehouse. You get a card and a number, which is the correct amount of ceremony.
Elsewhere on the estate.
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