News

Last month, an article in Packaging News revealed how some designers are looking to nature for packaging inspiration. Here, Incpen director Jane Bickerstaffe argues that for the best packaging design we're better off looking to our own supply chain - and to packaging technologists.

I agree with the idea of bringing a new approach to an old problem but a recent PN article on using biomimetics in packaging design didn't address the problem. Brainstorming, invented by Alex Osborn, an American advertising man, can produce useful lateral thinking but it has to be relevant.

My favourite (possibly apocryphal) brainstorming story is that of a Canadian power company's problem with freezing overhead lines. One employee suggested that what was needed was pigeons trained to bounce up and down on the lines to shake off the snow before it froze. As a result, the company introduced a system which mechanically vibrated the lines, and the problem was solved.

But bouncing pigeons are not the way to address the complexities of a modern supply system. Nor are crabs or molluscs.

The article said that for the packaging industry, the key is to break out of the ‘here's the product, how do I package it?' mindset and look to seeds for inspiration because nature produces the seed and the delivery method at the same time – for example, peas grow inside the pea pod. ‘Nature does not distinguish between the product and its packaging, but instead devises how to get the whole thing where it needs to be.'  But does that make sense?

Nature doesn't get the pea, with or without a pod, anywhere beyond the plant on which it grew. Farmers, packaging and supply chain systems get the peas to the consumer, and what's more removing nature's pods is the most efficient way of preserving, transporting and storing the peas.

The article says, ‘Nature never wastes anything'.  Well that could be because nature isn't trying to get televisions and toys from Taiwan, or even cabbages from Lincolnshire.

The example given of the optimum packaging for apple juice, the apple itself, is a poor one because transporting all that extra weight (setting aside the handling difficulties of tonnes of apples rolling about) would consume huge amounts of unnecessary fuel, generate unwelcome greenhouse gas emissions and leave vast amounts of waste to deal with. The article also says ‘nature always produces more than will survive'. Isn't that otherwise defined as waste?

Nature's perfect packaging is the egg but it wouldn't get very far without man-made protection.

To optimise packaging and supply systems, what we need is joined-up thinking and lots of good ideas from people who understand packaging technologies, material properties and retailing. Trained packaging technologists, in other words. Let's do that before turning to pigeons, crabs or molluscs.

Packaging News wants to hear about your views on this issue. Join the debate by logging in and leaving your thoughts at the end of the article.

Click here to read more comment, debate and blogs. And if you would like to write a Soap Box Blog, we'd love to hear from you. Just email packagingnews.editorial@haymarket.com