The busy dad hated cleaning his kitchen grill so he's made world's first throwaway, plastic-free grill bag of its kind

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An engineer has come up with an eco food-bag which he says will get people dusting off their George Foremans and grilling again.

Richard Brough designed Grill-It bags because he hated cleaning his own kitchen grill so much he stuffed it in a cupboard. Thought to be the first of their kind in the world, his plastic-free bags can be thrown away and are also compostable.

Richard, from Darlington, had his first product idea at the age of eight, and it's one that's instantly recognisable. "The idea was to move your bike wheels side to side to make you go forward," he says, "and I remember thinking I will do something about that later.

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"That became someone else’s idea many years later, in the form of the Y Fliker scooters. The Grill-It bags are a sustainable and eco version of the plastic grilling bags designed for electrical, George Foreman style grills.

"They're made from paper that is disposable, recyclable and compostable. In 2018, 70% of UK households owned a grill and those figures have increased. That's 20 million grills.

"A lot are sat in a cupboard because people don't like to clean them, they're too much of a pain. I bought one because I was really busy and I was the one that cooked the family meals.

"But I'd go back and have to scrub the grill, and it got even harder after a few uses. There are reusable plastic bags out there - but you have to clean out the bag."

The 46-year-old's Grill-It bag has a special adhesive that's "chlorine free, as healthy as you can get and it's zero cleaning". "You can throw it straight in the bin," he adds, "it's automatically taking plastic out of the environment, it's a complete win."

The bags have been food safety tested and Richard has lined up Thornaby packaging firm Harrisons, which prints the Yorkshire Tea boxes. The design is registered and patent is pending.

Grill-It bags can be supplied in "limited quantities" - now Richard needs the funds for machinery to scale up manufacturing. Costs for the specialist components have almost doubled recently due to covid, Brexit and the war in Ukraine.

But Richard is undaunted. "Where I initially needed around £45,000 to buy the machinery, I now need £100,000," he says.

"Finally, after far too long, this should be my first product to market. Immediately after this, my next products to work on are a new type of tea bag design, a new kitchen bin that doesn’t use a conventional solid plastic container and a new air freshener plus several others."

Find out more about Grill-It bags and join the mailing list at www.grillitbags.co.uk.

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