Investigate what the requirements for reusable packaging for ketchup and porridge might look like.

The goal is to define design criteria that ensure durability, hygiene, usability, and climate benefit (materials).

Make this knowledge is available to all who will develop and produce reusable packaging going forward.

Currently we have a linear economy. A product is:

• Manufactured

• Distributed

• Retailed

• Goes to the Customer

• Is thrown away

However, we don’t want it to be thrown away, we want to reuse the packaging!

To reuse the packaging means that the consumer brings the packaging back to a drop-off point where it will be cleaned and redistributed, which is much like the current PANT-system in Norway.

This transforms the linear economy to a circular one. Now from the customer it goes towards the drop-off point/collection

Cleaning
After collection multiple things needs to be done. The packages need to be cleaned. But to clean the packages, e.g. the lids need to be taken off. So, the packaging needs to be separated.

Additionally, quality control needs to take place, rejecting damaged packages or packages which do not fulfill their purpose (form a barrier between the food and e.g. oxygen) and not migrate any harmful chemicals towards the food. Since material degrade over time, we need to track the number of lifecycles and how old the packaging is. If it is too old, or too many lifecycles, it needs to be rejected.

And the packages need to be sorted, sending only the correct packages to the correct production facilities for refill.

For now, we assume that all of this happens in the “cleaning” stage. After that, the packaging can start a new lifecycle.

Scope/ Delimitation: Design for recycling
Even though we now have a circular life cycle; the product will need to be thrown away at some point. Hence: Design for reuse should consider Design for End-of-Life

For more in-depth information about design for recycling, check out Grønt Punkt Norge.

In this project, we have started with the circular life cycle of packaging, which is further developed into a design guide to help the estimate the reusability of a food packaging.

Then we made a case study in testing the design guide on the products Idun Ketchup and Fjordland Risgrøt.

Based on our dedicated research, interviews, and analysis, we developed a universal interactive tool to evaluate the reusability level of specific food packaging solutions.

We call this tool the Circular Food Packaging Design Guide.

In the presentation included in this page we have described each sections of the Design Guide.

The Design Principles are the criteria, or topics that we can judge the packaging on.

The Principles are divided in groups based on the life cycle stages discussed previously.

Then we have the component analysis. This is the area which the user needs to fill in. Only the white parts are to be filled in.

The user of the tool needs to score the packaging on how well it complies to the principles on a score of 1 to 5. 1 means a poor performs and 5 mean excellent performance.

This component analysis is divided into three sub parts:

1. First he general analysis column is about the complete packaging assembled.

2. Second the columns for reusable parts, the scores for those specific parts need to be filled in. The packaging always has one main body and potentially multiple reusable parts

3. And lastly the columns for disposable parts, the scores for those specific parts need to be filled in.

After the component analysis we have the reusability score. The reusability score shows how important it is to change the packaging based on this principle. The score is from 0 to 3:

3 = Important to look at
2 = Should look at
1 = Nice to look at 0 = Is fine as is

And finally: The improvements is the part where the user can fill in how to improve on that specific requirement

Important to keep in mind, this is on principle level, in the end the complete packaging should be a complete solution. See attached presentation for details.

We performed a case study using the products Idun Tomatketchup and the Fjordland Risgrøt

Worth mentioning:
Us providing a suggestions does not mean the current packaging is bad. When designing a packaging there are more topics to consider than only the reusability. All our suggestions are based on the guideline. There can be good reasons NOT to adhere to these guidelines.

With the case study the guidelines showed itself useful by having a systematic approach on improving packaging.

We have proved the design guideline to be a discursive tool, which can bring some useful and interesting discussions among everyone to make the packages fit better into a circular economy.

However, designers should take a very important role with this approach. As always, you still need to think for yourself and combine everything properly.

In the end, the goal is not simply to make packaging reusable, but to rethink packaging altogether.

By challenging assumptions, reducing unnecessary materials, and designing smarter systems, we move closer to a truly circular economy.