Food and Beverage Packaging March 2010 : Page 9fix 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 qual- ity expectations are a special problem. Dates on salad packages get extra attention because the pack- ages are awkward to open and not resealable—the date and the product visibility are the only consum- er-friendly parts of the package. Most of the packaged that we’ve heard from don’ ad alternatives in their refr the greens in the bag don’t look good, there are not tomatoes, cuc heads of lettuce to fall back if stores are willing to take packages back, tonight’s likely to be incomplete. The economy and spending straints are putting a strai retailers and suppliers, who determined as ever to sell they have on the shelf an staff hours to a minimum checking the remaining s all the merchandise on the in every department is no and many retailers continue that rotating or loading chandise from back to take care of the problem. Meanwhile, many shoppers come to believe that convenience stores have fresher mercha supermarkets. Many convenience stores have a high profile perishable and date-sensitive ads, pre-cut fruits and ve sandwiches, as well as the Today’s convenience-stor ers frequently see empl vendors culling mercha actually discarding products have reached their last date Seeing this attention to makes a significant impression and generates word of mouth as well. The time may be right to recog- nize the freshness date readability problem as an opportunity to opti- mize the date instead of minimizing it. Besides making many consum- ers happy, large-print dates are like large-print prices. They both com- municate that this information is something that the seller is proud of rather than trying to keep in the dark. F&BP Mona Doyle is CEO of The Consumer Network Inc., a firm that regularly takes the pulse of consumers on packaging is- sues. She publishes The Shopper Report newsletter. Contact her at 800-291-0100 or mona@consumernetwork.org. Boulevard CA 90622-5940 14-562-6387 .accessbusinessgroup.com Business Group we take and costs out of your ring by doing it for our state-of-the-art ur skilled staff and experience, we can e highest-quality d bars, powdered granulations. If you’re a level of quality equal nd out more. Visit .accessbusinessgroup.com -562-6387 to arrange ur facilities. Our nutritional manufacturing gives you a healthier bottom line. All you need is Access. 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 9 Access Business Group |
