How to use packaging to prevent spending a lot of money in R&D (True Fruits)...

Background :
Imagine that you are a smoothies producer, positionning your products on the "we say the truth" line, ie nothing hidden : fruits, that's all.

Fact :
One day, for one reason or another, you start to source your mint somewhere else, you find one, which is very tasty, and switch it in our recipes. The production starts, and, shock !, the product tastes perfectly, but has lost its green color.

Question :
What do we do?

Solution 1 :
I put all my R&D crew on the question, they need to find a solution by next monday, or we can not sell anyway.

Solution 2:
I put my R&D crew on the question, and, until they find out, I try to fix the problem somehow, fully aligned with my product image.

Answer : 
We could imagine that True Fruits recently went through this dillema, and here is their solution:

 It is basically explained that they have a new mint, which tastes perfect, but does not give the usual green, and the product looks like a soup. But it's good !


more info : http://www.true-fruits.com/

Science Spark : Packaging design influences taste expectation

Imagine you want to buy a dessert, but are affraid of something too sweet. You are in the shop, in the right hand a cake with a rounded shape box, in the left hand a similar cake, with a normal rectangular box. Which one do you take?

The second one, according to Prof Charles Spence and his team, working at the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford. In their recent study "Predictive packaging design: Tasting shapes, typefaces, names, and sounds", they wanted to assess how rounded vs. angular shapes, typefaces, and names, and high vs. low pitched sounds, can be combined in order to convey information about the taste (sweetness and sourness) of a product.

They highlighted the following:

• People tend to match tastes crossmodally to other sensory features.
• Rounded shapes, typefaces, and names, and low-pitched sounds enhance sweetness expectation.
• Angular shapes, typefaces, and names, and high-pitched sounds enhance sourness expectation.
• The different sensory features associated to a product’s packaging influence taste expectations.

Predictive packaging design: Tasting shapes, typefaces, names, and sounds, Velasco et al, Food Quality and Preferences, Volume 34, June 2014, Pages 88–95

Personnalize your food ! (at least virtually)

 

Monoprix (the French upclasse supermarket) offers on its  website the possibility to send e-card in the form of food products. Will this be the first step before the possibility to create a personnalized food packaging ? In Germany, DM is offering a similar service, for shampoo and cosmetics.(https://produktdesigner.fotoparadies.de/)

Retro design Ice Cream

Hansens is not only a producer of very good ice cream sold in Denmark (http://www.hansens-is.dk/), it is also a producer with taste, as it asked Mads Berg (http://www.madsberg.dk/) to draw their ads. The results is simply great !

Selling emotions

Simply chocolate (http://www.simplychocolate.dk/) has definitly unusual names for its chocolates, with the clear target to deliver beyond taste, ie emotions... Associated with a great design, the result is charming !