Big Question:
Can our packaging strategy not only meet our ambitious sustainability targets, but better serve customer needs and become a competitive advantage?
In Summary:
By listening to customers and employing divergent thinking, instead of following industry norms, we made the company operations more sustainable and more viable economically.
Background:
In 2020, I started to commercialize a recipe for sweet potato-based desserts that I'd been making since 2014. I originally made the recipe as a way to maximize nutritional value per dollar while under extreme financial constraints. Buying 10lbs of sweet potatoes a week for under $10 gave me a lot to experiment with. After years of trial and error, sharing my "sweet potato magic" with friends, family, and personal training clients, I decided to launch Sweetness: The Just Food Co. in the summer of 2020.
This emerged out of frustration with many existing business models' acquiescence to the norms of "it's just business," seeing the necessity of a vision for "just" businesses. With my familiarity with social business models and the Public Benefit Corporation structure, this evolved as a vehicle to contribute towards solving numerous problems facing society, such as those defined in the Sustainable Development Goals, and summarized with the slogan "In a Bitter World, it's Time for Sweetness."
Problem:
As a novel food product, encouraging trial was the most important priority. If no one knows what it is, there is no market for it. I approached the product from the perspective of marketing a non-dairy frozen dessert; a vegan, gluten-free, non-dairy, and allergen-friendly alternative to ice cream. However, this posed several problems with packaging and distribution.
Analysis:
After analysis by the Cornell University Food Lab, my product formulation was defined as a "dessert which is frozen," (as opposed to a non-dairy frozen dessert), both an asset with unique opportunities and a challenge needing to create systems for which no solution had yet been created.
I gained feedback from customers at farmers markets, on Clubhouse, Instagram, and with my Uber passengers who purchased products from a front-seat freezer (made simple with Uber's front passenger ban due to Covid-19).
Alternative Solutions:
Yogurt-like containers, most of which were plastic with non-recyclable components, with little in the way of compostable alternatives.
Refrigerated multi-pack containers such as those carrying macaroons, however all contained plastic windows.
Well-known suppliers with high waste, high cost, and high minimums who were not aligned with our goals due to their poor sustainability practices and their high concentration of market share (meaning our support would decrease the democratization of the industry by increasing their supplier power).
Implementation:
First, due to a miscommunication with a supplier, I used standard paper pint containers with a thin film on the inside that prevented compostability. This was a good learning opportunity, and meant we had plenty of containers to upcycle into coin jars for change, dry storage for spices, holding business cards or pens at markets, and similar uses.
Then, I switched to using compostable pint containers with paper and water-ink based label stickers. With this, we could make our products 100% compostable.
I gathered months of feedback from customers at farmers markets and at a drive-through pickup for local farm distribution subscribers. Additionally, I sold units to my Uber passengers and advertised in the inside of my car, creating further opportunities for discussions with customers through this guerilla marketing strategy.
At first, I had separate systems for sampling and for selling full pints, and the pint price was competitive with other specialty ice creams, placing it outside of the price range for average wage-earners.
Through this iterative process, developed a novel packaging system using compostable 4oz corn-based bioplastic single-serving cups, birch spoons, included info cards made from recycled paper with water-based ink, wrapped like a gift in a compostable paper bag, sealed shut by a compostable sticker with water-based ink around the outside, covering two faces of the resulting box shape.
Results:
These novel research insights informed our packaging model, allowing us to increase revenue per weight by 124%, simplify composting, support and encourage mutual aid, reduce food waste, and facilitate sharing.
This also allowed us to more efficiently pack units into our rectangular coolers and reduced energy needs for our plug-in freezer that we used for markets on hot days to maintain food-safe product temperatures and for deliveries.
In alignment with my original recipe's origin as a high-nutrition and high flavor solution to food insecurity, this allowed us to participate in mutual aid initiatives such as community fridges.
This allowed for 100% compostable components in our control, limiting operational waste to only materials sent to us by suppliers.
Being able to offer individual serving sizes gave us a much lower price entry-point for customers. This meant that our products became more accessible for our neighbors using SNAP benefits, especially with HIP (Healthy Incentive Program) and the pandemic doubling of benefits at farmers' markets, this allowed people experiencing acute financial need to have a product like ours, rich in both taste and nutrition.