SO hopefully if you’re reading this you’re familiar with the Earthpouch?….. For anyone who’s not, it’s a new product from Sirane (developed by our bags and pouches division, B&G Products), which is plastic-free. It’s made from a coated paper and is 100% compostable and 100% recyclable. At the moment, in the ‘post Iceland food packaging world’, it’s created a lot of interest.
We’re now seeing the flurry of interest that followed it’s launch, and then exposure at Packaging Innovations, turn into completed orders, and a range of different products – from nutrional blends to seed snacks, from granola to porridge oats, are being packaged and sold in the Earthpouch. When we say coming to a shelf near you soon, it probably is, as they’re the first of many…
It seems to be smaller, niche brands leading the charge – and it’ll be interesting to see how much pressure that exerts on the bigger players. After all, the public will simply say, ‘if they can do it, surely they all can’.
But what’s really interesting for me is how the companies using the Earthpouch extol its virtues on their packaging. When the product was first shown to me, with my ‘marketing head’ on, I was immediately drawn in by two key words: compostable, and recyclable. In that order. For me, if I’m honest, the fact that it was compostable was the big draw, selling point number 1 if you will. But that doesn’t seem to be the focus of the companies taking the packaging, for them it seems to be the recylabilty that’s the big draw. They all mention that on their packaging, but some don’t even mention compostability….
Take the pack below, our first internation order for McCambridge, an Irish brand who are packaging their gluten-free porridge oats in an Earthpouch. If you look at the top, it states ‘Packed in our fully recyclable, plastic free Mala Glas pouch’. On the reverse is a recycling logo. There’s no mention anywhere of the fact that the packaging can be composted. Is this a missed trick? I find this intriguing, and would love to know the rationale…
MARK LINGARD, MARKETING
