Security Packaging

Excerpts from Published Interview: (2007)

Security Packaging that Embraces the Environment

CUTTING DOWN ON CLAMS

The clamshell has become a necessary evil of sorts for CPGs.  Retailers need the protection and security clamshells provide, but consumers loathe the thermoform and conservationists are hardly in love with the land-filling properties of discarded clamshells.

A report this past summer from Consumer Network, Philadelphia, Pa., indicates that consumers – young and old – are switching brands or avoiding purchasing hard-to-open packages altogether.  The survey of nearly 2,500 adults reveals the avoidance of hard-to-open packages by mothers with young children; women under age 35 who say they are “convenience oriented”; and older men and women.

CPG companies, from the largest like Procter & Gamble to some upstarts like Shure Personal Audio, are beginning to take notice.

P&G Gillette’s Bob Collins is the director of global package development for blades and razors and his department saw a change in the size of its clamshells for razors as a “win-win.”

Initially, the Boston, Mass.-based consumer goods provider aimed to make its clamshells easier to open and more environmentally friendly with smaller thermoforms combined with tear-proof paperboard.

“P&G needed to insure that the second moment of truth (the moment when the consumer brings the package home and attempts to open it and use the product) was as pleasant as the initial in-store moment,” he says.  “We also needed to continue to prevent shrinkage.”

Additionally, the multinational company needed to increase its sustainability to maintain good corporate citizen status.

Fortunately for Collins and his group, they were able to create a smaller package that is able to run on the same exact machinery (no capital investment) as well as fill the same size footprint for its allotted space in stores.

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