Ideas, thoughts, and musings about the branding and packaging world.

There’s no way around it: the last couple of years have been incredibly difficult, for all of us. And while we are called to face some huge, unprecedented challenges, one question is par?cularly crucial: “How will our actions impact our future?”
At RBA Design, we believe that to work beHer you need to understand how complex things are. OKen, problems arise from a myriad of different causes, all intertwined with one another, and have more than one solution. For this reason, we decided to launch a series of virtual “meetings” with you, our audience. These will be our chances to talk about some of our favorite topics in abit more detail.
The first one? But environmental sustainability, of course. We hope that our discussions will give us all the possibility to start again and walk together towards a beHer, shared future.

Not Less, But Much More! Today’s problems and tomorrow’s challenges in the food packaging industry.

Food waste is one of the biggest paradoxes of our contemporary times. Every minute, approximately eleven people die of hunger. Despite this, more than a third of the globally-produced food is thrown away unconsumed – every single year.
Besides representing a massive economic and ethical failure, food waste is also responsible for over 6% of global CO2 emissions. Consider this: if food waste was a country, it would be the third most polluting one in the world. In Europe alone, every year around 100 million tonnes of food are wasted, and this figure is only expected to double over the next thirty years.
RBA Design operates in the food packaging sector, so it is paramount for us to use this data in trying to understand what goals we should pursue in the near future.
In Italy, eight out of ten people believe (wrongly) that packaging materials are more harmful to the environment than food waste itself. If we believed this incorrect perception, we might be tempted to do “less” to fix this problem: less packaging, smaller packaging, or no packaging at all might seem like obvious solu?ons.
However, the packaging sector should be considered like an added value to help with reducing waste, as opposed to being viewed as an additional economic and environmental cost.
Most food waste is associated with the short shelf life of fresh produce, as well as the confusion around “use by” dates. Therefore, it is important to identify packaging as an essen?al tool to help us tackle the key challenges associated with sustainable food consumption.
Innovations in the food packaging sectors can fine-tune the exchange between gases and vapors with the outside atmosphere, which helps to reduce waste and food loss. In turn, this allows to maintain good food quality as well as prevent chemical contamination and lengthen the average shelf life of products. Naturally, we also must look for alternative solutions that can enable us to reduce plastic waste and oil consumption (we will discuss these soon).
For these reasons, the sustainable packaging topic is becoming increasingly interesting within the food industry. Many companies are already working towards making their packaging more sustainable by investing on improving shelf life, reducing packaging weight, and using plastic-free materials. One of these pioneering companies is Granarolo, that we have worked with on a project about the creation of Linea Natura, the first-ever yogurt range packaged in 100% recyclable paper pots.