Can Green Packaging and Luxury be Balanced for Food Packaging?
Can luxury food packaging be green? How can you utilize environmentally friendly materials and still create an upscale image?
In the particular case of food packaging, where product protection is always the first priority, how can the packaging be green, luxurious and safe? Can sophisticated design carry the message? What examples of upscale food products have you seen with a great balance of green and luxury?
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what a luxury food company could do
anonymous...Hi Lisa,
You might take a look at Mark's Spencer's Plan A to see what they are doing in food retailing. If you want to see what they did, I took some close up pictures of how they are guiding consumers to understand what they could do with their packaging for their high end Swiss Chocolates here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOFo6U4dc_c
There are exciting opportunities to identify with consumer concerns about environmental impact, as well as keep a sustainable cost structure.
Let me know if I can help further.
Kate
It Can Be Done!!!
Adam Pawlick
Lisa -
Great question, and I think the answer is that it can definitely be done. It requires a good deal of collaboration between the packaging engineers, graphics designers, marketing and sales groups to really drive home the key characteristics that make it luxurious and sustainable.
There are several sustainable materials out there that have little or no impact on current package appearance. For example thermoformed PLA versus the more standard thermoformed PS, or APET. The clarity is equal, the performance (in most cases) is similar, but you can use a renewable material. The same can be said of utilizing PLA as part of a structure like Frito-Lay did with its Sun Chips bags. The Cereplast hybrid starch/PP blend is up to 40% renewable content with very little change to performance or appearance. Coke's introduction of the PlanetBottle (TM) hasn't impacted the luxury of the Coke bottle design, the funcitonality, or the end of life, but did introduce a percentage of renewable content.
Another great part about sustainbility is the fact that a redesign that can completely revamp a package's look but reduces materials or improves shipping cube is more sustainable.
Personally, I think that if all the groups work together and add "sustainable" as one of the requirements right next to "functional," "cost effective," and "luxury" then it definitely can be done.
Hi Lisa, Sustainable
Tracy Sutton, Realisation Manager, Pearlfisher...Hi Lisa,
Sustainable packaging for luxury markets in general is currently quite a challenge. Food packaging is particularly challenging because of the specific requirements of the product such as the need for a gas barrier, to be greaseproof and then, of course to protect and promote the product, this unfortunately leads to excess layering.
One point that is interesting is how to define luxury. The consumer currently associates luxury with previous high-end products/packs that they have come into contact with - most of those packs will have been designed with little or no understanding of sustainability and could have impossible to recycle foils, metallic or matt laminates or be metallised. Many such packs suffer from the inevitable layers of packaging as some designers some feel that consumers like to undress their gorgeous products. Therefore, many materials and decoration methods associated with 'luxury' are actually some of the worst for the environment.
With these visual/tactile cues in mind, it is rather challenging to communicate luxury without any of these materials or decoration techniques because you are challenging the perception of luxury in the consumers minds.
Many consumers still have negative connotations of 'green' products from the 80's where many did not live up to the standards of standard, less green equivalents. They therefore often think that green = sub standard, or low quality. Some 'green' or organic brands opt for a recycled, worthy appearance to automatically engage the consumer that they are green, however this approach leads people to think that the product/pack is more natural, rather than high quality.
Consumers are questioning the sustainable integrity of packs more and more and higher quality, recycled/renewable materials are available for designers to use. Manufacturers and retailers are having to be more responsible about the packs that they place on shelves because they have more pressure to pay for the collection and recycling of the packaging. I hope that the perception of luxury will shift to more sustainable innovative materials and finishes and I think that in the future re-fill concepts will become more common in which case the relationship that a consumer has with the pack it self will change completely.
On another point, does anyone know what the composition of the Plant Bottle is? Is it a composite of PET and a renewable material?
Good thinking
Los Angeles Locksmith...It's a better point, the solution... well :)
Hello lisa, I am a student in
Anonymous...Hello lisa,
I am a student in international trade, and I have just begun a study has this subject it is an importing problem I think and I could know if you had an opinion personal has this subject and if you knew companies continue to make of the luxury by being worried about the nature
Thank you in advance.
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