Following our popular series on symbols on packaging, we will be focusing on brands with unusual and iconic packaging in the coming months. Starting with a tube that quickly made a name for itself.

We hope you enjoy reading! Your Tightly Packed editorial team

“There is no need for ugly packaging.” Thus spoke Max Wittrock, one of the three mymuesli founders, in an interview some years ago.  And we agree with him. Design and aesthetics strongly differentiate packaging and can even do better than many marketing campaigns—provided the packaging can credibly convey the company’s and brand’s philosophy. Which proves that when it comes to functionality, digital interconnectivity and design, investing in packaging is always worthwhile.

EYE-CATCHING PACKAGING

Which is exactly what the three start-up founders of the German mymuesli company did. Philipp Kraiss, Max Wittrock and Hubertus Bessau chose a tubular composite can that is now made of 90% refined and reusable recycled paper and has become an eye-catcher in kitchens, offices and at the POS. In part this is due to the numerous varying motives on the packaging of a total of 566 quadrillion different types of muesli. Another reason is certainly the tube’s unusual height of up to 27 millimetres. A height that means the tube won’t fit into any conventional kitchen cupboard.

Now you might think that this would put the product at a disadvantage. However, when it comes to mymuesli tubes, quite the opposite is true. They are so popular that people are even turning them into vases, speakers for smartphones, coffee tables and herb planters.

But what made the three friends from university choose the tubes in 2007?

As in so many company start-ups, the decision was purely coincidental. Back then the guys, as the three founders who have chosen Berlin as their home call themselves to this day, were looking for the right packaging manufacturer. But in the very early days of founding the company, no manufacturer was willing to produce the extremely small volume. Except for one. And they happened to have tubes on offer.