Labelling

“Eurgh! I’m not eating anything healthy,” squeals six-year-old Oscar. When Pearlfisher was tasked with designing the packaging for a new range of healthy children’s ready meals, creative director Jonathan Ford, who is Oscar’s father, knew the firm would be dealing with some pretty tough customers – and their parents.

Fears about childhood obesity led Ofcom to ban television adverts from July 2007 for foods that are high in fat, sugar or salt during programmes that are of particular appeal to children under 10. Ofcom also restricted the use of licensed characters (such as Disney characters). From this month, the ban extends to cover programmes of particular appeal to children under 16.

To coincide with these rules, in July the Committee of Advertising Practice introduced new rules for non-broadcast adverts, including on-pack promotions, for children’s food. As yet, there are no such regulations covering the design of food packaging that targets children. However, the Department of Health has set up a Packaging Working Group to consider existing voluntary codes of practice and the possibility of introducing further regulations.

Richard Watts, co-ordinator of the Children’s Food Campaign run by Sustain – the alliance for better food and farming – believes government-enforced rules that recognise packaging as a method of promotion are needed. “The packaging is important as it increases ‘pester power’,” says Watts. Children are drawn to the bright colours, deliberately eye-catching designs and fun characters on children’s food packaging, leading them to demand certain (often unhealthy) foods when out shopping with mum or dad.

There have been moves, more recently, to use similar methods to attract children to healthier foods, such as fruit. Waitrose, for example, uses Beatrix Potter stickers on packs of small, easy-peel fruit. Both Which? and the National Heart Forum want such persuasive techniques restricted to just healthier foods.

Unnecessary regulations
Watts insists that government needs to do more, because “there has never been a voluntary agreement that has worked”. The campaign organised the 2004 Children’s Food Bill, which was not passed, and is currently working on a new Bill, which will be more specific than the first and may cover packaging design. Watts is confident that this time the Bill will be passed.

But Food and Drink Federation director of communications Julian Hunt believes it is premature to talk of extending the existing rules to cover packaging. “We already operate in one of the most heavily regulated markets in Europe and the new rules should be given time to take effect,” argues Hunt.

Snack, Nut and Crisp Manufacturers Association (SNACMA) regulatory and scientific manager Bob Foot also feels there is no need for regulation because his industry is doing enough voluntarily. He says members no longer strictly advertise to children and have moved away from on-pack promotions. “These products are generally not aimed at kids. They are not formulated for children,” he says.

Red Mill Snack Foods is a member of SNACMA and produces a range of children’s snacks, such as Oinks, which features a cartoon pig on a pogo stick on-pack, and Petrified Prawns, which features quivering cartoon prawns. Foot says when snacks such as these are likely to be given to children, smaller portion bags are used. The Red Mill children’s range comes in 15g bags, whereas standard crisp packets are 35g. However, Foot says the biggest-selling crisp pack size in the UK is 25g, which is the size in most multipacks and what parents buy for their children.

Organix produces organic baby and children’s food, including a range of snacks called Goodies, aimed at children aged two to five. Dorset-based Halo Design Associates has designed the packaging for all Organix’s products and has teamed up with illustrator Caroline Jayne Church to create a range of cartoon children for the Goodies packaging. Halo creative director Andrew Shearing says the cartoons will only be applied to the Goodies range and not Organix baby food. “For food for children under 12 months old, you don’t want to be too light-hearted. The packaging needs to convey trust.”

Healthy and enticing
All Organix products feature the trademarked ‘No junk promise’ prominently on front to entice parents with the food’s health qualities. Shearing thinks trying to determine a food’s nutritional merit can be confusing for parents. “Consumers think all baby foods will be organic and, actually, very few are,” he says.

But Pearlfisher’s Ford, himself a father of four, argues that consumers can see through false nutritional claims. “There definitely is junk trading under healthy propositions, but consumers are fairly wise.”

Hillary Graves and John Stapleton spotted a gap in the market for healthy ready meals for children and set up Little Dish. Pearlfisher designed a range of cartoon characters, including a unicycling cow for the Little Dish cottage pie and a weightlifting fish for the fish pie. Each character is sprouting a speech bubble saying ‘100% natural, no added salt or sugar’ to reassure parents. The packs also feature poems about the food to educate children about its goodness and ingredients.

“Big licensed cartoon characters are the standard method of attracting children, but they are unoriginal,” says Ford. Designs need to appeal to children, but they also need to communicate to parents that something is good, tasty and nutritious, he adds.

Cartoon characters need to be chosen carefully by designers. Labelling regulations state that quantitative ingredient declarations (QUIDs) must be given for ingredients highlighted on the label in words or pictures. Therefore, a drink that features images of fruit on its label must provide information on the percentage of juice from each fruit pictured in the drink.

Neither Halo nor Pearlfisher chose photos of actual children for their packs. “Your kid is the cutest in the world. But when you show parents photos of other people’s children, they don’t respond in the same way,” says Halo’s Shearing.

United Biscuits, which owns brands such as Hula Hoops, Penguin and Skips, has guidelines for the marketing of brands eaten by children – in addition to statutory codes – to ensure it behaves responsibly. Head of strategic products Alice Cadman argues: “Packaging design is about the brand; in most cases photos of children simply wouldn’t be relevant.”

Photos of babies are used for the youngest age-range Organix foods, but once children are old enough to have a say in what they eat, photos of children don’t engage them. Designs for young children’s food packaging need to steer clear of appearing too babyish. Organix development manager Rachel Kingdon says: “From two or three years old, kids will start to say ‘I don’t want to eat that, it’s baby food’.”

Andrew Knowles, one of the founders of design agency Jones Knowles Ritchie, which redesigned the packaging for Dairylea spreadable cheese triangles, believes it can be dangerous to make a product appealing to just one market sector, such as styling characters for a very young age. “As children grow, things they used to like can become passé,” says Knowles. In order to grow, brands needs to appeal to all ages.

The Dairylea cartoon Friesian cow is pictured on packs to remind people of the TV adverts. However, Knowles says packaging design has a very different function to advertising and should not be subject to the same restrictions. “What you get from packaging is information and distinctive styling to help recognise the brand and make it stand out on shelf. It isn’t the same as advertising; you haven’t got the time to tell a story.” 

Ford is also unconvinced of the need to extend advertising legislation to cover packaging. “As long as you make sure all the necessary labelling is in place, guidance is fine, but not to the point where it is restrictive.” He says the first steps have been taken with traffic light labelling to give at-a-glance information to parents. “You can’t stop people eating things. Everyone fancies a nice, juicy beef burger now and then.”

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COW & GATE
Cow & Gate powdered baby milk was being sold in foil vacuum-packed bags in a cardboard box. Brand share had been in decline and design agency Blue Marlin found evidence that the packaging was a contributory factor.

Blue Marlin took its structural designers into people’s homes to observe how they were preparing the milk. “We saw that mothers were preparing the milk with one hand and carrying the baby in the other because it was hungry and screaming,” says international marketing director Lulu Laidlaw-Smith.

Blue Marlin developed the EaZypack, which is easy to open one-handed. The scoop to measure out the powder is stored in a slot in the lid so it’s always to hand. A strip of plastic across the front left corner is used to level the scoop to ensure measurement is always accurate. The lid then audibly clicks shut to assure mothers the contents are kept fresh and air-tight. The tamper had to be placed over the opening, which had not been done before, to ensure maximum security. In the first 14 months after the EaZypack was launched, Cow & Gate sales grew 16.9% to a market-leading position. The design was awarded a Starpack Supreme Gold Award.

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USEFUL WEBSITES
Ofcom: www.ofcom.org.uk/media/mofaq/bdc/foodadsfaq
 
CAP code: www.cap.org.uk/cap/codes/cap_code/ShowCode.htm?clause_id=1731
 
Department of Health: www.dh.gov.uk/en/Policyandguidance/Healthandsocialcaretopics/Healthyliving/DH_4115815
 
Children’s food campaign:www.sustainweb.org/page.php?id=29