Ideas, ideas, reflections on the world of branding and packaging.

It goes without saying how surprising and difficult the last two years have been for everyone. Faced with the enormity of the challenges we are facing, one question rises above the others: “what consequences will our actions have on the future?”
At RBA Design we believe that to work best it is necessary to understand the complexity of things: how problems are often generated by a multitude of intertwined causes; and how the solutions are never unique. For this reason, we thought we would inaugurate a series of appointments with you, small insights into the topics that are closest to our hearts, starting (it goes without saying) with environmental sustainability. We have the hope that they will be able to open windows of knowledge necessary to restart together towards a common direction.

Not less but more!
Today’s problems and future challenges in the food packaging sector

Food waste is one of the most incomprehensible paradoxes of our era. Every minute, around eleven people die of hunger. Food waste is one of the most incomprehensible paradoxes of our era. Every minute, around eleven people die of hunger. Despite this, over a third of the food produced globally each year is not consumed.
In addition to being a huge economic and moral failure, food waste is responsible for over 6% of global greenhouse gas emissions, so much so that if food waste were a country, it would be the third most polluting country in the world. In Europe alone, we are talking about around 100 million tonnes of food wasted annually, destined to double in three decades.
In the sector in which RBA Design operates, that of food packaging, starting from this data is necessary to understand the objectives to be pursued in the near future. . In Italy, eight out of ten people mistakenly believe that packaging materials are more harmful to the environment than food waste. . If we listened to this erroneous perception, we could be led to believe that the solution to pursue is the one in the sign of “minus”: reducing, shrinking, even trying to eliminate as much packaging as possible.
Packaging, however, must start to be considered as an added value for waste reduction, rather than as an additional environmental and economic cost. Much of food waste, in fact, is linked to the short shelf life of fresh products and misunderstandings relating to expiry dates. In this sense, it is necessary to identify packaging as an essential element to address the key challenge of sustainable food consumption.
Innovations in the food packaging sector, in fact, can perfect gas and vapor exchanges with the external atmosphere, addressing the reduction of food waste and losses, preserving food quality, preventing chemical contamination of foods and prolonging their shelf life. of conservation. At the same time, obviously, we need to find alternative solutions that allow us to reduce the accumulation of plastic waste and oil consumption (and we’ll talk about this soon).
For these reasons, the topic of sustainable packaging is attracting increasing interest among food companies. There are many companies that are working in this direction, investing in increasing shelf life, reducing the weight of packaging and using alternative materials to plastic. A virtuous example in this sense is the Fattoria La Maliosa agricultural company, with which we have been working for many years.

The talking label for Fattoria La Maliosa wins bronze at Pentawards

A project of great interest which won RBA Design the bronze medal at the Pentawards, the most important international award for the world of packaging design, in the ‘Sustainable Beverages’ category is the new design of the bottle of #Saturnalia rosso 2019 by Fattoria La Mischievous. . A recognition that makes us very proud, rewarding the bottle, characterized by a talking label, which tells the Corino Method with which the wines are produced, through blockchain technology, allowing the consumer to quickly have all the information on the product, from cultivation, when passing through the cellar. In the Saturnalia wine label design, the 8 principles of the Method are treated, with a modern and engaging layout, in as many multi-subject labels.

Dir. creativo: Nicola Mincione, Senior designer: Gianandrea Gregis, Designer: Margherita Niada.