The major quantitative research study was carried out on behalf of Payne to identify and understand consumer’s concerns with packaging.
Payne’s managing director Martin Dallas, said: “Understanding consumer attitudes and priorities is fundamental in enabling packaging manufacturers to work successfully with brand owners in the development of effective pack solutions.”
Of more than 500 consumers who took part in the study, 85% said they had experienced some frustration with packs. Of those, 49% cited food packaging as the cause of this frustration.
A theme that continued throughout the study was frustration in opening. Even when unprompted, difficulties with opening generated the strongest response with “difficult to open, tear or rip easily” being highlighted as the major frustration by 32% of respondents.
In response to a prompted list of frustrations this increased even further as 81% cited difficult to open or having to use a tool as a top frustration.
The survey found that although difficulty of opening packs causes frustration across age groups, vacuum packed foods or packaging that requires a tool to open are a particular concern for older people.
Too much waste/packaging was also a concern for the survey respondents, but the figures suggest not to the same degree as pack functionality. For example 8% of people mentioned this factor unprompted, whereas almost half listed this concern among their top three frustrations in response to a pre-defined list.
Dallas added: “It is very clear from this research that functionality is a major part of what consumers consider to be good packaging. A particularly important aspect of our research was that the initial responses were unprompted so these really do get to the heart of what frustrates and annoys people.
For example, concerns about over-packaging only became more prevalent when consumers were prompted on the subject, whereas difficulties in opening a pack or having to use scissors or other sharp instruments to gain entry were very much front of mind all the time.”
Source: Payne
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