Summit Delivers Recipe For Innovation In Food Packaging

By John Kalkowski, editor in chief, Food Online

One of the most exciting — and challenging — aspects of working in the packaging industry is the need to continuously innovate. That was the primary topic at the recent Global Food and Beverage Packaging Summit in Chicago, which featured several presenters from both global consumer packaged goods companies and smaller, aspiring food businesses.

In addressing the need for innovation, Joe Pagliari, director of innovation and packaging for Heineken USA and keynote speaker at the event, says that innovators look at the world and see opportunities. “Every new product offering resolves a circumstance of struggle and fulfills an unmet goal of progress,” he says, explaining that all products are actually a type of service that helps a consumer solve one of their struggles.

The real drivers of new product development are strategic clarity, consumer insight, and robust design, he says. Understanding the job to be accomplished by new products and paying attention to these three factors are key to a successful product launch.

Revealing The Holy Grail Of Food Packaging

Several speakers addressed the need to understand what consumers want. This goes beyond their stated needs and requires packagers to delve deeply into asking consumers how packaging might solve their struggles. Chris Cornyn, chief innovation officer of Revolution Foods, says this has led to recent innovations in easy opening and recloseability of packages.

He says today’s Holy Grail for food and beverage packaging includes ease of use, maintaining delicious flavors in products, and delivering healthy foods. Including these three attributes in packaging design “will get people to put something in their carts. Packaging is the last chance to get people to make impulse buys.”

Collaboration is a common theme in the innovation process. A panel of speakers explored who should be involved in new product and package design. Lora Spizzirri, director of packaging research and design at Kraft Foods, says packaging innovation must involve external partners at every level of the supply chain. Richard Chapman, VP of supply chain at Berlin Packaging, also notes that many vendors have design services to help customers with packaging concepts. While these services initially were offered only to large CPGs, many smaller food and beverage companies now can take advantage of these services to launch their products.   

New Methods To Gain Consumer Insights

Several speakers pointed to the increasing use of big data and social media to gain insights into consumers’ wants and needs. Tracy Malkowski, senior design manager, beverages, for Campbell Soup Company, related how Campbell’s has used these strategies to cost-effectively break into new markets for its beverage products, such as V8 fruit-vegetable juices and infused waters.

By carefully gauging the market, she says Campbell’s has been able to go from concept to product launch within one year. The key, she says, is developing a good creative brief that takes into account factors such as psychographic consumer targets, competitive products, consumer needs, and performing an effective consumer testing plan.

While Campbell’s utilizes traditional techniques in packaging design, such as marketing agency advice, trade shows, and focus groups, Malkowski says company also uses virtual shopping, crowd sourcing, and shop-alongs. She pointed out Pinterest as an excellent source to check consumer interests and see how they are using new products and packaging. Using this information to develop packaging that captures consumer attention has allowed Campbell’s to expand its beverage exposure on retail shelves beyond the juice aisle to the bottled water, energy drink, and dairy sections.

Packaging For The Internet Sales Channel

The Internet also is opening new channels for food and beverage sales. Chris Cetnar, senior scientist at the J.M. Smucker Co. spoke about the direct-to-consumer phenomenon, in which companies, such as Amazon, are now entering the grocery market, allowing customers to order foods for delivery to their homes. This has necessitated development of new secondary packaging to handle bottles, flex packs, tubes, and other primary packaging in smaller amounts without the protection afforded in case sizes. In many instances, this has created concerns about over-packaging in this developing market.

John Nunziato, founder and partner at design agency Little Big Brands, demonstrated how direct-to-consumer channels have given rise to online companies, such Blue Apron, which packages and ships ready-to-cook meals with all ingredients included for chef-inspired recipes. These companies are becoming more competitive with brick-and-mortar stores, based on pricing, right-sizing portions, and waste reduction.

Another major topic was how packaging can be designed to appeal to multiple audiences. Some products are meant to appeal only to certain age groups or geographic demographics, but increasingly, CPGs expect the packages to have more universal appeal.

Designing Packaging For Millennials

Millennials are one demographic group that is increasingly capturing the interests of marketers. Mackenzie King, director of design research and insight translation at Lextant, points out that Millennials, whose birth years range from the early 1980s to the early 2000s, will wield more spending power than any previous generation, with annual spending power of $2.45 trillion in 2015. By 2018, they are expected to exceed Baby Boomers’ spending, hitting purchases of $3.39 trillion.

This group has a whole new set of expectations for living and for the products they purchase. Savvy packagers and marketers are transitioning from “selling a product to be consumed” toward “providing an experience to be unlocked,” she says, offering numerous strategies for dealing with this market segment.

Another packaging development gaining ground in the market is the pursuit of clean labels, according to Lewis Goldstein, VP of brand marketing for Organic Valley, a co-op of dairy farmers. Clean labels are a response to consumer demands for healthy and honest products. He says many companies are noting on their packaging the fact that the foods are minimally processed and contain fewer artificial preservatives and flavorings to differentiate their products on the shelf. Even the package design, label, and size can be used to create the perception that a product is “clean and healthy.”