How do you get a water melon to its destination without any losses? Quite simply with practical boxes and meshes with draw-strings by Mondi. Photo: Mondi

Fitting Rounds into Square Spaces

B(u)y and large

It sounds like a dream and too good to be true: with its “Watermelon Dream” Mondi, a company specialised in paper packaging, has succeeded in developing a packaging unit sure to delight both consumers, retailers and nature, alike. A recyclable, rectangular box with a window and carrier handle allows shoppers to see the product and, what’s more important, eases their way home from the fruit shelf with this heavy “vitamin bomb”.

The combined slot-folding construction of the single-layer corrugated cardboard is easy to stack and saves time and money for storage and transport. By manufacturer’s accounts, 50 percent more water melons can be stocked in each heavy goods vehicle. Furthermore, these packaging units can be printed with striking motifs making the dark-green “heavyweights” a real eye-catcher at the POS. Finally, it is also designed to prolong shelf life and thereby reduce food losses. According to Mondi this new type of packaging can achieve an approximately 13 percent reduction of food losses. This is a notable success in view of the dramatic figure of one third of all foodstuffs lost worldwide due to transport, storage, infrastructure problems as well as a lack of consumer education. According to data provided by the Save Food Initiative of FAO, UNEP and Messe Düsseldorf, this amount of food never reaches a plate.

Re-closable fresh bags keep fruit and vegetables fresh for longer. Photo: Schur

Small servings or ready-to-consume

And those preferring to carry less weight home can fall back on water melons in mini format; or save cutting up altogether and instead opt for smart pick’n’go solutions that are claimed to also keep the product fresh for longer. The “Fresh‘n’Go” bag by Schur also boasts a whole host of benefits:

Integral loops for convenient carrying,
Practical single-serve units,
See-trough film for quality control at the POS
Easily re-closable via zipper or laser perforation.

One third of food is lost worldwide; with fruit and vegetables this figure is even as high as 45 percent. Photo: Messe Düsseldorf, Constanze Tillmann

The “packaging future” of fresh produce

Stora Enso has looked at packaging trends for fruit and vegetable in a current study. Research revealed that healthy, local and sustainable food is moving increasingly centre stage especially for the generation of the so-called Millennials – i.e. the shoppers born between 1980 and 2000. However, convenience in shopping and storage should not suffer from this. Which is why retailers expect demand for packaging to rise. After all, fresh, little servings in handy and smart packaging that improve food shelf life and ease use at the same time will continue to be required.