If you watched Blue Planet II on Sunday, it’s understandable if you’re still haunted, days later, by its brutal sequences of sealife trapped or poisoned by plastic waste. Yes, they were horrifying – but, one might argue, they needed to be to better underline how ocean plastic is an urgent environmental problem for absolutely everyone, and not just tropical island dwellers thousands of miles away.
It’s no surprise, then, that the latest Mintel predictions for packaging in the coming year take as their theme waste and sustainability. In 2018, ‘the throwaway culture of today will evolve into one that understands and embraces the role of packaging as a primary means to reduce global food and product waste’, Mintel predicts. ‘Plastic packaging adrift in the world’s oceans will become the catalyst driving brands to rethink packaging in a context consumers can understand and act upon.’
This means, says Mintel, that packaging will increasingly influence shopping decisions – and brands will need to be clear that they are making efforts to be part of the solution to, rather than the problem of, ocean plastic. In two words: more recycling. ‘While collecting waste plastic from the sea to recycle into new packaging can raise consumer awareness, it won’t solve the problem. In order to keep plastic out of the sea, a renewed effort towards the circular economy is needed to keep packaging material in use.’
Of course, another solution is to not use plastic at all. This is the way of Eat Troo, a new cereal brand founded by Helenor Rogers and her husband Mike. Its three granola variants come in an environmentally friendly stand-up pouch that can be recycled and is compostable “yet provides total food security for dry and moist food products”.
The reasons for such packaging are clear, says Helenor. “Watching Blue Planet II and seeing 38 million pieces of plastic waste washed up on Henderson Island in the South Pacific can’t make it any more obvious. We need to break our single-use plastic habits and actively seek alternatives now.”
Lovely stuff. So, why aren’t more suppliers doing the same thing? “Because it’s potentially too risky and a bit complicated,” she says. There are challenges in two key areas. The first is shelf life. The bags, which have a water-based inner coating, “roughly provide the same moisture barrier as plastic bags. However, the oxygen barrier is slightly less.” As a result, shelf life is cut by half – to six months from the typical 12 – and this demands that the supply chain be extra-agile. “Essentially, we have 45 days to get stock from manufacture to distribution,” says Helenor. “Our six months has raised eyebrows, but our commitment to make it work has hopefully relieved concerns.”
The other big issue is the packaging’s appearance. Printing on paper rather than plastic means the brightly coloured design is “less sharp and shiny” she says. “But it is still bold and impactful. We just need to get used to seeing packaging like this. These compromises have got to be worth it. We hope we’ll be the first of many using this much more environmentally friendly material.”
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