Young’s packaging future

Young’s Seafood’s approach to packaging has recently moved into its next phase of development, delivering the concepts embodied by its virtual integration strategy. Packaging Today speaks to Stuart Caborn, chief supply-chain and procurement officer at Young’s, to find out more about the direction the company is moving in.

Young’s Seafood, established in 1805, rose to fame in part for the distinctive blue pottery jars in which it sold potted shrimp. Now, it has turned the packaging innovation spotlight to others in a Dragon’s-Den-style event that sought the best new ideas to transform the future of seafood. Young’s invited five suppliers from packaging and ingredients companies to pitch their concepts directly to the board during the event.

Taking part in the stand-off was Ultimate Packaging, Jardox, Graphic Packaging International, FFP and DS Smith. The event saw one floor of Young’s Seafood’s headquarters in Ross House, Grimsby, transformed into a Dragon’s-Den-esque warehouse for the day – the core design supplied by DS Smith. Many of the ideas showcased at the event are likely to come to market soon, with Young’s being the first seafood processor to work in such an active partnership with suppliers to bring innovation to supermarkets across the UK.

Packaging Today spoke with Stuart Caborn, chief supply-chain and procurement officer at Young’s Seafood about the event and its expansive work within food packaging innovation.

Packaging Today: How did the Dragon’s-Den-style event come about?

Stuart Caborn: Our packaging strategy is at the heart of our company’s vision, which is to inspire people to love fish now and for generations to come. As part of our Fish for Life programme, we design a lot of sustainability and innovation into our packaging. We want to drive consumption with great packaging and bring inspirational design functionality to our consumers, and that is exactly where the Dragon’s Den style event came from. We wanted to see the most exciting packaging innovation in the market.

We have developed some great relationships over the past few years, and we wanted to integrate our packaging suppliers into our business and our supply chain. This event was a way of allowing these suppliers to use their fantastic R&D resources to showcase cutting-edge ideas. Rather than simply giving them a brief of a product and asking them to design the packaging around it, this approach was about integrating packaging into the concept design at the very start of the process, and giving our partners the opportunity to do some free thinking around the concept. It was a breathtaking experience; a really good event.

With new packaging designs, care needs to be taken to ensure that any changes do not alienate a core brand audience. How does Young’s ensure it meets the needs of all its customers?

You need to have a blended approach to packaging that focuses on how different consumer groups behave in store, and their preferences. This is always informed by our consumer research. We have brands in our portfolio like Gastro, for example, which is aimed at people who want restaurant-quality food at home and is accessible to everybody, but we also have brands like Funky Fish, which particularly appeals to younger consumers who want to be a bit more experimental.

One of the key components in Young’s drive for packaging innovation is its virtual integration strategy. What does that comprise?

Virtual integration is about true collaboration. It’s about bringing the resources of our strategic suppliers and partners into a project team and driving value into the products.

As part of this approach, I’ve moved our packaging development team so that they now sit next to our packaging procurement team. It was all about aligning our business so there was no silo management; so that it was integrated internally as well as externally.

At Young’s, our core expertise is creating dishes that consumers love. It's not yet truly about providing the world’s most innovative packaging – but that's where we aspire to be. So, we’ve chosen the best partners in our supply chain and we’re using them as category champions. We’re saying to them, “Here’s what we think the future trends are within the packaging arena and the food arena. Go away, think about what you believe the next big thing in packaging is, and let us know what you’d like to work on with us to bring innovation to shoppers.”

We’ve opened up our innovation pipeline to these suppliers, so they can have a full understanding of the opportunities available, and we’ve opened up our consumer intelligence and insight to them, because everything we do is driven by our understanding of what consumers want. We are asking, for instance, what is the packaging of smoked salmon going to look like in the future? Is it resealable? Is it in sleeves? What material is it made with; is it biodegradable? What digital formats are incorporated, and does augmented reality play a role in it?

We tried to give our design partners an open brief, and they came back with some great ideas, many of which were presented at the event.

What do you think is driving innovation and advancements in food packaging?

I believe that the major changes in the food packaging industry could come from innovation through virtual integration. We also see a lot of scope for innovation in terms of digital enhancement. On a personal level, I am very excited about the potential role that virtual reality could play in our industry, and in the future shopping experience.

Imagine if augmented reality could actually be linked to a brand strategy, for example. You could create a marketing and digital strategy that could get consumers truly excited. I believe that this, if executed well, could get people interacting with brands and products in a new, more collaborative way. Packaging isn’t just about protecting a product; it is a fully integrated part of our brand strategy, and I believe there is scope to take it one step further to engage consumers even more.

Young’s is developing an innovation centre to drive forward the ‘next generation’ of the company’s packaging. What do you hope this will achieve?

Our state-of-the-art innovation centre is being co-funded as part of our virtual integration strategy with a lot of our partners. It will feature a demonstration kitchen and a special boat that visitors can sit in and virtually experience where around the world our fish come from – whether that’s Norway, Alaska or Iceland.

Our development chefs will cook up some great dishes while customers and our own teams develop packaging solutions for them, meaning the complete solution can be developed in one place. The centre is designed to ensure that in tandem with our products, we are creating great packaging to sell and tell the story of the product.

Innovation for its own sake rarely produces practical packaging solutions. How will the work at the innovation centre ensure practicality?

We are constantly looking at other sectors and industries to see how they are using packaging to engage consumers and sell inspiration on the shelf. With 3D printers that enable us to test ideas in depth, this is something the centre will explore in detail.

DS Smith, for example, is traditionally a supplier of corrugated board and offers shelf-ready packaging. Linking a company with this level of retail experience to, for example, GPI packaging, which focuses on cartons, better results can be achieved. If we can get our suppliers working together – not just with Young’s, but with each other, too – we can build on functionality, cost-efficiency and design.

Young’s virtual integration strategy and our innovation centre will deliver industry insights to evolve packaging in innovation and practicality alike. The Dragon’s-Den-style event, for example, gave us many hints as to how our packaging could offer consumers a new approach to form factors, influence buying decisions and impact how food is consumed.