News

The long-awaited Waste Strategy for England, published in May, included proposals for the Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap) to establish optimum minimum standards for packaging in each product class.

But with more supermarkets selling more products from more countries to more people than ever before, there are doubts that the task is achievable.

The main tool currently available to keep pack sizes in check is the Packaging (Essential Requirements) Regulations, but these have been criticised for the lack of prosecutions made since they came into force in 2003.

Packaging consultant Terry Robins says the problem with the requirements is that they can be interpreted in several ways, especially regarding their emphasis on ‘customer acceptance’.

“Some say [the lack of prosecutions] shows the efficiency of the brand owners and the packaging industry,” says Robins. “Others say it is more to do with the weakness in knowledge of Trading Standards.”

The perceived lack of success of the regulations is a factor in the government’s decision to seek new optimum minimum standards, but there is concern about what ‘optimum’ might actually mean.

Best in class
According to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the plan is to apply Wrap’s ‘best in class’ approach, which has already made progress in lightweighting food tins (Packaging News, March 2006) and glass bottles (Packaging News, April 2007).

However, there is a general feeling in the industry that, by focusing on what appears on supermarket shelves, this method is limited and it would be better to develop an integrated system looking at packaging ‘from the lorry backwards’.

“Weight isn’t everything in designing packaging,” says a spokesperson for the Food and Drink Federation. “Lighter primary packaging may need heavier transit packaging.”

According to Euromonitor International packaging manager Dr Ben Punchard, an “optimum” pack might be one that provides the “greatest protection” for the product to help reduce food waste, which is more harmful to the environment in landfill than packaging is.

Punchard says that imposing standards might affect customers’ ability to identify products on a supermarket shelf, suggesting that brands would not welcome something that might remove their individuality.

“Coca-Cola would not be happy with a standard that didn’t allow them to continue to use their recognised bottle shape,” he says.

This view is echoed by Design Bridge 3D branding and packaging director Nick Verebelyi, who believes packaging design could be “hobbled” by too much standardisation, which would remove the “competitive edge”.

On-shelf appeal
“We all know a supermarket is, to a large extent, a glorified warehouse – to which the general public happens to be invited,” says Verebelyi. “The challenge is to get products to stand out.”

Packaging Federation chief executive Dick Searle says there might also be implications from a legal standpoint under competition law if, for example, a product by a particular manufacturer is declared ‘best in class’.

“Are companies going to be expected to give up trade secrets?” he asks.

Searle is also concerned about how, if at all, the standards might be applied to foreign goods imported and sold in the UK. “We seem to be trying to specify packaging for the rest of the world,” he adds.

The most difficult thing for Wrap is likely to be defining the product classes to be evaluated. With anywhere between 10,000 and 50,000 product lines on supermarket shelves at any one time, this is a mammoth task, made more difficult by the number of suppliers in certain sectors.

The carbonated drinks market is dominated by a relatively small number of brand owners, which would make developing a standard relatively straightforward, assuming they can be brought on board.
However, Euromonitor’s Punchard says other sectors will present a bigger challenge because of the large number of producers and the wide range of pack types.

The Industry Council for Packaging and the Environment (Incpen) hopes that Wrap will realise the scale of the task facing it and look for help.

“Wrap doesn’t have experience in specific product areas and hopefully they’ll seek advice,” says Incpen director Jane Bickerstaffe. “I’m sure industry would be happy to talk to them.”

Tim Rothwell, a packaging analyst at Lansdowne Resources, is “sceptical” about Wrap’s qualifications to decide on the standards.

“The idea that a quango is going to set the standards is, quite frankly, scandalous, and it won’t work,” he says.

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WRAP'S RESPONSE
Wrap says it will look to build on its ‘best in class’ scheme that already covers 140 categories and that its goal is to develop suggestions for best practice rather than legislation. “Wrap is looking to provide guidance for packaging rather than standards,” says special advisor Mark Barthel.

Wrap also says that collaboration with experts has already borne fruits in lightweighting and it is working closely with retailers looking at how packaging should evolve.

For more information on “best in class” visit: www.wrap.org.uk/retail/tools_for_change/uk_best_in_class/index.html