Blog - Aegg Thought Leadership: Key Trends Affecting the Food Packaging Industry Right Now

We enjoyed seeing many of you at the NEC Packaging Innovations show in March. Whether you managed to visit the show or sadly missed it, we thought that you would like to hear what our show visitors were talking to us about.  In communicating to you now, these thoughts are the ones that have proven to have longevity…

Brexit and Currency Volatility54182703 s brexit 002

This is obviously a big factor affecting all players in the food packaging industry: suppliers, manufacturers, retailers and consumers alike.  With planning for any uncertainty being almost impossible (packaging pricing especially), what should food manufacturers do and what are the packaging suppliers doing to help them?

What Aegg thinks…

For buyers of higher packaging volumes who are engaged in price commitments to large retailers we think the solutions are twofold:

  1. having more mutual commitments to volumes secured under contract, thereby locking down prices with a pre-agreed price review mechanic (where prices can go down as well as up). Aegg is offering contract arrangements for price stability;
  2. having more production capacity in the UK, which Aegg is looking to do both directly and indirectly through partnerships. This solution will offer more pricing stability as we would confine currency volatility to a smaller component of the final packaging price (possibly just the raw material).

As a consequence of the decline in the sterling exchange rate is that UK manufacturers are seeing increased demand for export and an increase in prices in some material inputs. This creates a change in the supply and demand situation, forcing some UK manufacturers to put prices up for UK customers. Aegg would hope to avoid such situations by agreeing supply contracts.

 

Agile Design and Integrating Consumer Opinion

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We attended a Danone presentation on the development of its new packaging for their Aptamil infant formula brand.

Although this was a story of a uniquely complex piece of packaging that is to be sold in vast quantities across the globe the message of this talk has huge relevance for all scales of new packaging development:

  • Packaging should be designed in a way that Danone terms as being ‘agile’ (one where all stakeholders are involved in the design formulation process concurrently: lawyers, suppliers, sales, marketing, consumers, retailers, product technologists, packaging technologists, production technologists and more). The old days of passing the project to the next person ‘in the line’ are long gone.
  • The consumers’ view is more important than ever before. Their ‘view’ should be assessed by observing them use the real product in a real environment, whether when shopping, or in the domestic kitchen (as in this case)

What Aegg thinks…

We thoroughly agree that old design processes are outdated. At Aegg, we refer to:

  • ’Holistic concurrent design’, where all considerations of all the stakeholders are put on the table at the same time.  This enables a more relevant, faster, cheaper solution than would be possible under sequential design processes.
  • ‘Agile design’ (as distinct from ‘waterfall’ design’), where constant improvements are made all the time, rather than a single large change event. Such strategy enables smaller, lower risk improvements that keep pace with learnings and customer feedback.

Aegg is currently adopting both design approaches (holistic concurrent design and agile design) in the development of its fresh soup and pasta sauce packaging project. We are observing and talking to consumers in the home as they use our new and innovative lidding solution in this project.

Growing Need for Greater Environmental Consideration

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Perhaps we need say no more than this: according to a talk given by Marks and Spencer at the Packaging Innovations show, ‘by 2050, there will be more plastic in the sea than fish.’

What an alarming statistic.

What Aegg thinks…

Plastic is a packaging material whose properties bring great benefit to us all and, until now, humanity has largely behaved in the belief that the benefits outweigh the downsides. This will not remain the case, and being a responsible player in the plastics industry, Aegg is constantly looking at initiatives where we can reduce our environmental impact.

Besides the usual programmes to reduce waste and resource consumption at our premises, we are considering the following:

  1. Carbon neutral programmes
  2. Plant based plastics
  3. Additives that render plastic biodegradable
  4. Undertaking consumer research to ensure that we are tuned into their environmental views.

We are aiming to announce an update on our environmental initiatives at the September Packaging Innovations show.

The Increasing Shift Towards Partnerships

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Aegg noticed this shift at previous Packaging Innovations events and through our own client collaborations. It became even more apparent at this year’s show with an increasing number of enquirers looking for closer long term partnerships.They are looking for greater transparency, faster innovation and a closer match of product features with consumer needs.

What Aegg thinks…

This trend can only increase as

  • direct costs increase
  • the costs of failure increase
  • the consumer becomes ever more discerning
  • global competition becomes ever fiercer.

In reflection of this, Aegg continues to invest heavily in a holistic, bespoke, concurrent turnkey ‘design to delivery’ service. By working with client teams on food packaging that reflects total life cycle considerations, we aim to create products with superior shelf stand-out , superior end consumer performance at less total cost.

If you’ve come across emerging trends within the packaging industry and would like to share them, we'd love to hear from you.

For more news, thought leadership and articles from Aegg, please click here

Aegg at Packaging Innovations:


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Aegg successfully showcased new product ranges and services, attracting a huge amount of interest to our stand.
Plus, our new
miniAegg service went down a storm with smaller food companies that want to order Aegg's off-the-shelf packaging range in smaller quantities to fit their cashflow and storage needs.


Future Packaging Innovations:
Aegg will be exhibiting at the forthcoming Packaging Innovations exhibition in London on 13-14 September 2017. Come and visit us!