Research Task: Food Packaging

Brief

Next time you’re at the supermarket or food shopping online, examine what strategies companies use to design their ranges. For example, look at the design decisions made in their luxury, budget, world food or other ranges. Consider these questions and make notes in your learning log:

• How do these designs create a sense of branding, and how is the overall image of the supermarket maintained across them?

• How do environmental awareness and Zero Plastic criteria inform the design decisions, packaging materials and structure?

Food Packaging

Tony's Chocoloney

I've always wanted to talk about how much I love Tony's Chocoloney's packaging, they use bright, saturated colours and big bold text that takes up the whole front of the bar. It's very eye-catching and it really feels like you are getting a good product; the inside especially has information of their companies aims, explaining why their chocolate is unusually cut.

The packaging itself is wrapped in foil and using hybrid-paper packaging (using the least amount of plastic as possible to make it biodegradable), it's very sustainable and it's something I haven't seen a chocolate company do in this format. It has it's own shelf at Tesco and is usually on promotional aisles when their is a seasonal event, however, I've yet to see a stand on its own; Waitrose has given a lot of promotion for this brand, as Waitrose aims to be fair-trade.

The packaging and the product itself reflects the companies aims to avoid using plastic and for fair-trade and slave-free values, the packaging is extremely eye-catching with it's bold font and colour. The packaging aims to adults and children, it's bright enough to capture attention and the message reflects on modern values that adults have.

Lindt (Luxury)

Another chocolate brand, Lindt (Excellence) aims to a different target, marketing to adults, it has a simple front with gold embellishment to create the chocolate for adults; no bright colours (pop of colour) and simple imagery showing the type of flavour; the text isn't bold, it's simple and "neat".

The packaging is card and foil (inside), most Lindt products are like this (minus the individually wrapped truffles), which suggests to us that this brand aims to be sustainable.

Lindt gets a lot of promotion throughout seasonal events, or when their products are heavily discounted and is seen as a luxury product in Tesco. Comparing to another chocolate brand like Dairy Milk or Nestle, they use a lot of plastic and are advertised regularly in Tesco; which makes me believe that the aim of zero plastic isn't a true priority. (( Don't fire me Tesco)).

Beavertown IPA (Niche)

A product I'm not too familiar with, I just like their packaging, IPA's are known for the creative packaging with a very dynamic and interesting illustration displayed on their boxes and their craft beers; because of this I believe that their target market is young adults, an older adult might look at these and feel too childish or a novelty.

Each flavor has it's own individual design and created by an artist, which adds a personal touch to each product; comparing to any other beer brand with basic and familiar packaging. I wish more packaging was this interesting and fun-- bonus points for hiring an artist.

The brand use card boxes and cans for their products, from other similar products they use-- avoid the use of plastic can rings, which means it's plastic free! I've hardly seen these advertised in and around Tesco, only when it's Dry January do these products get promotion.

Pot Noodle (Budget)

A product that get's a lot of promotion is Pot Noodle for it's 'on the go' target market, this product gets a lot of promotion and with it's plastic packaging-- it's clear it's got no aim for zero plastic.

The design of the product is simple and clear, with bold text and simple vibrant colours; it's branding is very good, using the 'o' in pot noodle to be the visual pot (design of the product), alongside the yellow beam of light coming out of the 'o' pot makes it an interesting and iconic design. It's market to be 'on the go' shows that on the branding, by labeling it as 'Be Heroic In 4 Minutes'.

The target audience is for everyone since it's a simple design and gets a lot of promotion for it's aims, not too much intention on being plastic-free despite other brands that are lesser known that I've seen done before using styrofoam cups and/or reinforced card.

Wotsits (Budget)

This product is another that gets a lot of promotions and is sold very regularly in Tesco, it's bold packaging and low price-point makes these brands very popular. The packaging has bold rounded font with a simple image of the product on the front; the font makes it instantly obvious what we are seeing, making it easier to pick off the shelves.

It's plastic packaging suggests that it hasn't achieved zero plastic, unlike other brands I've seen that use paper packaging or card packaging; which they have done recently with their baked range, using paper/card for the multi-packs.

Itsu (World... sort of)

Itsu style of packaging is simple and uses geometric shapes to add details and iconography, and uses a photo of the cooked product on the packaging to create structure in the branding. A little touch of Japanese text on the right to add "authenticity" and simple clear text that's easily readable.

The packaging is plastic and in other ranges they use plastic trays for the dumplings and similar products-- I have seen other frozen food brands that use cardboard, like fish fingers or chicken nuggets. But I don't know if it's a food safety reason that these are plastic.

Being a British brand, these do go on offer regularly and has cemented across multiple food aisles, having their own noodle pot range and their own seasoning and sauces ranges.

Milk Bar Buttons

Back to chocolate, these are popular among young children and appeals to them with their iconic fun blue font and cream packaging. The splash of milk behind the font is a nice touch, alluding to it's taste and contents of milk.

Plastic packaging again; I've seen Tony's Chocoloney using a hybrid-paper packaging with a product similar to this. Nestle and Cadbury chocolate's uses plastic in most of their products and are commonly on promotional aisles, especially with their already lower prices-- making it affordable.

Graze (Marmite)

Graze isn't a brand I'm very familiar with, I've seen them mainly on the 'food to go' mods as snacks, their branding is very simple but very in your face. Bold font and colour the changes depending on flavour type, it doesn't appeal to children, mainly adults; pack with veg doesn't shout 'for children'.

The packaging type is using card around a plastic tray, not entirely zero plastic, but I could see them changing to a cardboard hybrid material, it could be very beneficial to their branding since it's focus on health and well-being. They're a bit more expensive then say a chocolate bar, so they're not on offer as often.

Pringles Original

Another 'to go' food but a very popular brand, this time using minimal packaging and using a cardboard tube to hold the product (and maintain the shape). Pringles is underrated in the packaging, you know when you see a can of Pringles and it even has an iconic saying "once you pop, you can't stop". It's instantly eye-catching with the bold colors (depending on flavour) and it's logo out on front, the logo having the mustache man and a bow-tie saying 'Pringles'.

Doritos has followed this in suit, using a triangle tube to hold one of their newer ranges; it's easy and recyclable and affordable, on promotional regularly and very popular during seasonal events (i.e Christmas).

Reflection

I feel like my job has helped me for this exercise since I've seen a wide range of products regularly and know when they're sold more or how much promotion they get.

A lot of the bright colour brands to get sold more often or the brands that have been going on for much longer than the newer brands; as companies aims adapt to new ideals (focusing on better health and zero plastic), you start to see brands slowly adapt to them, however in some instances brands will claim to be the sustainable while others are actively trying to adapt.

Looking at branding, I can see how different companies design to cater to their target market. Many will stick with bold font and bright colours to capture attention to be family friendly, or using artistic licences to attract the target demographic.

I noticed that cheaper brands will gravitate to plastic to be more cost effective, while brands that aim to be environmentally friendly have that little extra cost.

Overall, this research task has made me delve deeper into what it takes to brand and promote a product, and what to look for yo be more environmentally friendly.