Bachelor Degree Project: Copenhagen School of Design and Technology
For my final project in Brand Design, I chose to focus on the ready-made food industry and how much food- and plastic waste Danish grocery stores are responsible for every single year. This allowed me to combine my love for sustainability with packaging design and innovation.
The problem
The inspiration for this project was the current ready-made food brand C Måltidsmarked. C Måltidsmarked is owned by a larger Danish corporation (Coop) who owns the majority of Danish super market chains. The products are therefore being sold in thousands of stores nationwide. The packaging is made of bulky plastic and non-recyclable material. Not only is this terrible for our planet, it also scares the customers away from buying the products, since they do not want to contribute to plastic pollution. This means that there is also a great deal of food going to waste.
The solution
Danish grocery store Irma is known for their focus on organic produce, sustainability and up-cycling. Therefore it seemed like a no brainer to me to feature Irma as the initiator of the initiative. Based on data from extensive research and focus groups, I completely redesigned the packaging of the ready-made salads so there's no longer an excessive amount of plastic. The packaging is made from 100% biodegradable material.
Changing the packaging wasn't the only necessary step. In order to transfer Irma's eco-friendly core values, Irma is now the brand behind the product to ensure positive brand perception.
Tone of Voice
The Tone of Voice for the new product was also extremely important. I wanted to completely eliminate the guilt attached to buying products that result in waste. Therefore, the product is speaking to the consumer by saying "100% biodegradable packaging, 0% guilt".
