Convenience vs. common sense.

is convenience really driving packaging?

Are producers and retailers caught in the crossfire of the consumer desire for less waste and the demand for greater convenience. Waste can’t be the price we are all happy to pay for greater convenience – can it? The overwhelming answer is often a resounding yes!

I posted a few random pictures that suggested that the world had gone completely mad. The pictures were of processed fruit either sliced or peeled to the point that plastic packaging was then required to protect the residual flesh of the fruit. A convenience item we have all seen. It’s not that nature had not provided its own very effective packaging in the first place! The more I looked around I figured that it was, at least in part, true that the world had gone mad.

Some of the wildly paranoid, or plain disillusioned, or even just the old & grumpy (with a pair of rose-tinted specs always at hand), might question the “at least in part” element of that statement. But not me. No cynicism here (!) and always with faith in humanity to apply common sense ……. eventually. I figured that sometimes we just need a gentle shove in the right direction.

Convenience rules – after all, it’s been a motivator for many of life’s inventions. By convenience I mean something that makes things much easier but that we largely don’t need. A wheelchair clearly isn’t a convenience, but a motor car may sometimes be. A washing machine is. A fridge is. Endless un-needed carton or plastic packaging is.  Yet despite the carbon footprint or waste of resources of many conveniences we, on balance, have come to see them more as necessities given their utility value. In other words, we make a value judgement that, to many (often me included), appears reasonable.

But have we taken convenience too far? have we placed too much value on convenience at the expense of waste? … walk through the aisles of a grocery store and you are confronted by a sea of (eventual) packaging waste that is destined to not be recycled but end up in a waste steam. Even fruit is increasingly packaged. How much of that packaging is convenience and how much is a necessity? Is the convenience for the consumer, the retailer or the producer – or even the marketeer anxious to use that packaging to attract shoppers to buy their products before all else.

This is not a rant against packaging per se. Packaging can serve a valuable and valid purpose – protecting food and keeping it fresh and edible. Also making the supply chain efficient in terms of ease of handling. Many businesses have reduced their packaging and moved towards more sustainably manufactured products. Food waste is, of course, a major concern across the supply chain. The point here is how much packaging is really a necessity or required efficiency and how much is a convenience (for someone). I do think we may need to shift the balance away from convenience towards reducing/preventing packaging waste and also to introduce reusable packaging models (see UK Refill Coalition’s First In-store Trial at Aldi to Reduce Single-Use Plastic Waste as a good example … bravo!).

Next time you take something out of the kitchen cupboard or fridge – or even take in your parcel from an on-line retailer….. have a long hard look at the extent of packaging and work out how much was actually a necessity and how much a convenience. The result might shock – or even look at the volumes in your recycling bin – same thing.

This is a plea for the whole supply chain – from farm to fork -  to shift away from convenience. And in particular, for consumers to accept that common sense should win. A little more inconvenience is for the good of everyone.