While price tends to be the major factor food manufacturers compete on today, particularly as private labels increase their market share, a handful of companies have turned to innovation to give themselves an edge.
In particular, a growing segment is using innovation to address increasing concerns over “pack rage” – the anger consumers feel when they can’t open packaging.
One such company is family-owned Victorian bakery Eatwell Foods, a specialist manufacturer of Gumnut Country Bakehouse portion-control biscuits for the food service and healthcare industries.
Eatwell's managing director Matthew McAlpin says the company was prompted to make changes to the biscuits' packaging following the revelation it did not score highly in a scientific assessment of how easy it was to open.
This was of particular concern considering public hospitals in NSW are among the main buyers of the biscuits.
The older packs were assessed using the Initial Scientific Review (ISR), a report that assesses products and allows organisations to compare suppliers using an accessibility benchmarking scale.
Arthritis Australia was one of the organisations behind the ISR. The others are Nestlé, NSW Health and Georgia Tech in the United States, one of the world’s leading public research universities focusing on improving the human condition.
The strategic partnerships manager for Arthritis Australia, Fergal Barry, says the ISR combines three aspects to form the benchmarking score: the populations affected, the requirement for a tool, and task criticality.
“The +8 to -8 rating gives a standard method to compare products’ ease of opening and legibility, so an organisation can compare two competing brands of a similar product, or a manufacturer can compare two design solutions for a product,” Barry says.
Using the ISR, the Gumnut packaging had an unimpressive accessibility score of +2, meaning it “may require additional time or effort for most consumers with limited functional abilities”.
Changes were quickly made to the Gumnut biscuit packaging, including a very obvious “tear here” label to lower the force required to open the pack.
The edges of the plastic bag are also now textured to help consumers grip it properly. Label changes as suggested by the ISR also make the labelling easier to read.
McAlpin says the changes have seen Gumnut biscuits retain market share in NSW healthcare organisations and increase it with other health authorities.
“I didn’t necessarily expect to see either of those, so the changes have definitely been worth doing,” he says. “Because we did the job on the biscuits, HealthShare NSW approached us to sort out another type of food packaging, which allowed us to enter a new market.”
McAlpin says the project demonstrated how accessibility is fast becoming a vital factor for brand owners to address in a future where a greater proportion of Australians will be aged 50 and over.
“You can have the best product, but if you can’t open it, it is no good,” he says. “Pack un-openability is a big problem and it’s starting to be addressed, which is great.”
Arthritis Australia's Barry says actions such as Eatwell's can open up whole new market areas for Australia's food manufacturers.
“Gumnut is a small company that has given itself an enormous commercial advantage for minimal cost,” he says.
“The pack dimensions are the same and the changes needed in manufacturing were low cost, yet resulted in significant differences to the usability of the end product.”
Barry says the opportunity for competitive advantage is very strong with the ISR tool.
“Accessible packaging is giving these manufacturers the opportunity to escape from price-dominated competition, opening up new markets and helping them retain existing ones in tight competition.”
