The trouble with working in packaging

28 September 2011



Chris Buxton, CEO of the Processing & Packaging Machinery Association (PPMA) Group, agrees we should all complain about questionable packaging but, he says, don’t blame the machinery suppliers for unethical marketing


Almost everyone that has ever worked in the packaging industry will have been approached at some point in their career by an irate person; (usually under the influence of a good claret) and been berated for the fact that packaging, or more specifically, an excess of it, is the root cause of just about everything that is bad on the planet! Depending upon exactly how many glasses of wine have elicited the said onslaught, you are also held personally responsible for these failings! The attack usually continues: “After all – you’re in the industry aren’t you? Well – you should do something about it!”.

Those of us who have been in the business long enough (or are tall enough not to feel intimidated) usually respond with a very valid counter attack based around the obvious benefits of packaging or, as we call them, the three ‘P’s: Protection, Preservation and Promotion. I wonder how many of our assailants are prepared to buy the dented tin in the supermarket ‘seconds bin’, despite the fact that in most cases the contents are perfectly fit for consumption. How quick we are to seek disproportionate amounts of compensation if we find that our purchase has perished or contains a ‘foreign body’! How many of us would buy a plain brown tin with ‘SOUP – VEGETABLE’ printed across it in preference to the glossy, expensive-looking tin with a homely farmyard picture resembling something out of a Catherine Cookson novel emblazoned across the side?

The answer is, of course, very few, if any of us. Basic commodities like simple foodstuffs are one of many areas where we do tend to afford ourselves the luxury of choosing ‘something special’, even if we do know in our heart of hearts that Mrs Beaton and her country kitchen had absolutely nothing to do with the contents of our soup tin and that it is still manufactured in vast vats often, even in these enlightened times, containing preservatives, colouring and flavouring!

Furthermore, isn’t it ludicrous and ironic that our attackers believe that just because we are in the process and packaging machinery supply business, or perhaps supply automation and robotic systems to an industry, that we can actually determine the policy on excessive packaging design which, as we all know, is driven by consumer behaviour and buying habits. Of course we can’t. We are simply satisfying demand from our customers.

But let’s pause for a moment. There are two sides to every argument. I am environmentally aware and I would be the first to complain about the fact that my ‘new and improved’ packet of biscuits is not only more expensive, made with cheaper ingredients and, given the available space in the ‘new bigger family size pack’, is at least one if not two biscuits short! I am invariably annoyed, as we all are, when we find that the £60 bottle of aftershave whose size promises a lifetime’s supply of liquid sex appeal is actually 90% glass and contains little more of the magic fluid than that required to drown a gnat! “Ah,” said the assistant, “you don’t need much.” Well, actually, for sixty quid, I do, and I don’t need a glass door-stopper to go with it!

The fact is, that if we don’t like the packaging that we encounter - and there is some pretty disgraceful packaging on the market – don’t buy it! Go a step further and actually complain about it. More than this, don’t berate the machinery suppliers trying to have a quiet glass of wine at a dinner party – complain to the small minority of companies who do actually apply unethical techniques in determining the packaging design. The sad reality is that ‘it doesn’t always do what it says on the tin’. If it doesn’t – and we don’t buy it, sooner or later market forces will prevail and it will be removed from the shelves for something that we will buy. But then - rather too many of us do ‘buy it’ and we don’t complain because the truth is, sometimes we actually like to squander our money on attractive, environmentally questionable products. It makes us feel good in an increasingly stressful existence! Let’s face it – life is always a compromise!

Views expressed on this page are those of the author and may not be shared by this publication.


Chris Buxton Chris Buxton

Chris Buxton Chris Buxton


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