Food and Beverage Packaging March 2010 : Page 7

ConsumerInsights Packaging shows its age, excePt when it doesn’t O ur most recent survey on what makes packages consumer-friendly showed that a big chunk of the answer lies in the age of the consumer. Our older respondents were unanimous in rating “easy to read” as an attribute that made a package consumer-friendly to them. The value of legibility to older shoppers shouldn’t be surprising, and is underscored by their high ratings of importance for “clear ingredient labeling” and instructions that are “easy to understand.” It sounds like young package designers and marketers aren’t paying attention to the needs of older shoppers, or if they are, they aren’t getting the message. Finding the remedy could start by asking designers to shop from a list while wearing a pair of prescription dark sunglasses that make them farsighted. While shopping, they should be reminded that older shoppers are an increasingly im- portant market segment and that almost all shoppers who reach the age of 50 have some degree of presbyopia, which makes reading small print or any print on dark backgrounds much harder than it is for younger shoppers. Readable freshness dates, No. 4 in the friendly attribute list, are a great challenge to packagers and their retailer customers. overhead light just to see if the yogurt isn’t past the freshness date in that tiny print on the bottom.” Many retailers hope that most shoppers will not read dates so that the merchandise on their shelves will keep moving in a first-in, first-out rotation. In this economy, that’s wishful as well as foolish thinking. More shoppers than ever are checking freshness ‹‹ “i hate having to get my glasses and turn on the dates, because they are determined to stretch their shopping dollars and make sure that what they buy will not go to waste. And because they are checking dates at home as well as in the store, there is a conve- nience/irritation aspect to the readability of dates: “I hate having to get my glasses and turn on the overhead light just to see if the yogurt isn’t past the freshness date in that tiny print on the bottom.” Both retailers and packagers love BOGO (buy one, get one) sales because they move more merchandise than special prices. Shop- pers with large families like BOGO offers, but older and single shoppers hate them. In Britain, retailers have introduced “BOGO- by Mona Doyle Hard-to-read labels are a frequent concern of senior citizens. w w w . f o o d a n d b e v e r a g e pa c k a g i n g . c o m m a r c h 2010 FOOd&Beverage packaging 7

Consumer Insights

Mona Doyle

Packaging shows its age, except when it doesn’t Our most recent survey on what makes packages consumer-friendly showed that a big chunk of the answer lies in the age of the consumer. Our older respondents were unanimous in rating “easy to read” as an attribute that made a package consumer-friendly to them. The value of legibility to older shoppers shouldn’t be surprising, and is underscored by their high ratings of importance for “clear ingredient labeling” and instructions that are “easy to understand.” It sounds like young package designers and marketers aren’t paying attention to the needs of older shoppers, or if they are, they aren’t getting the message. Finding the remedy could start by asking designers to shop from a list while wearing a pair of prescription dark sunglasses that make them farsighted. While shopping, they should be reminded that older shoppers are an increasingly important market segment and that almost all shoppers who reach the age of 50 have some degree of presbyopia, which makes reading small print or any print on dark backgrounds much harder than it is for younger shoppers. Readable freshness dates, No. 4 in the friendly attribute list, are a great challenge to packagers and their retailer customers. Many retailers hope that most shoppers will not read dates so that the merchandise on their shelves will keep moving in a first-in, first-out rotation. In this economy, that’s wishful as well as foolish thinking. More shoppers than ever are checking freshness Dates, because they are determined to stretch their shopping dollars and make sure that what they buy will not go to waste. And because they are checking dates at home as well as in the store, there is a convenience/ irritation aspect to the readability of dates: “I hate having to get my glasses and turn on the overhead light just to see if the yogurt isn’t past the freshness date in that tiny print on the bottom.” Both retailers and packagers love BOGO (buy one, get one) sales because they move more merchandise than special prices. Shoppers with large families like BOGO offers, but older and single shoppers hate them. In Britain, retailers have introduced “BOGO-Later” sales, in which the purchase of one item gets the shopper a coupon for a free one of the same item within a given time period. This approach is extra work for the retailers, but they are promoting the new idea as their way of helping their shoppers reduce waste. It will encourage some shoppers to make additional trips to the store, but it will also put even more attention on freshness dates. American shoppers who would flock to BOGOLater promotions are those who take freshness dates seriously, use them religiously, and try to buy the freshest package on the shelf, which they assume is the one with the latest date. The dates are especially important to those who are trading down from fresh to packaged foods in hopes of saving money. • “You know there’s a certain amount of waste when you buy fresh, but I am trying hard to make sure I get stuff that won’t go bad when I buy packaged products.” • “I hate myself when I don’t remember to check the freshness date.” Packaged salads are a category in which dates are especially important to consumers who are looking for value. Shoppers who are pulling back from restaurant spending and eating more at home want to Fix meals at minimal cost and with minimal fuss, and depend on packaged salads to meet that objective. Packages that don’t meet their freshness and quality expectations are a special problem. Dates on salad packages get extra attention because the packages are awkward to open and not resealable—the date and the product visibility are the only consumer- friendly parts of the package. Most of the packaged salad users that we’ve heard from don’t have salad alternatives in their refrigerators; if the greens in the bag don’t look good, there are not tomatoes, cucumbers, or heads of lettuce to fall back on. Even if stores are willing to take the spoiled packages back, tonight’s dinner is likely to be incomplete. The economy and spending restraints are putting a strain on many retailers and suppliers, who are as determined as ever to sell everything they have on the shelf and to keep staff hours to a minimum. Carefully checking the remaining shelf life of all the merchandise on the shelves in every department is no easy task, and many retailers continue to hope that rotating or loading the merchandise from back to front will take care of the problem. Meanwhile, many shoppers have come to believe that convenience stores have fresher merchandise than supermarkets. Many convenience stores have a high profile of highly perishable and date-sensitive salads, pre-cut fruits and veggies, and sandwiches, as well as the snacks. Today’s convenience-store customers frequently see employees and vendors culling merchandise and actually discarding products that have reached their last date of sale. Seeing this attention to freshness makes a significant impression and generates word of mouth as well. The time may be right to recognize the freshness date readability problem as an opportunity to optimize the date instead of minimizing it. Besides making many consumers happy, large-print dates are like large-print prices. They both communicate That this information is something that the seller is proud of rather than trying to keep in the dark.

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