Something grabbed my eye the other morning on CNN.com.
It was a story about cheese. To be specific, Kraft cheese, and to drill down to the gist of it, Kraft “Singles” American cheese. If it’s a while since you’ve put American cheese in your shopping cart, you’re not alone. A retail analyst told CNN that processed cheese sales have been in “long term decline for at least a decade.” Surprise, surprise, buyers have been opting for something less processed.
Which puts Kraft in a bind. They’ve added a reassurance on the wrapper that it’s “Made With Real Dairy” but still, it’s processed cheese, not natural cheese, and when people see “processed,” they see “artificial.”
That’s why, the story says, Kraft’s product is getting a makeover. Not the cheese itself— I guess it will be as processed as ever— but the package it comes in. First of all, the old package…..
..… has a new look, although to my eye, it doesn’t look a whole lot newer than the old look.
But it wasn’t the redesign of the package that got my attention, it was the redesign of the cellophane in which each slice is wrapped. They’re re-doing that too. Kraft says the biggest complaint from customers is their “inability to easily open the clear wrapper.” Translation: they can’t easily open the clear wrapper. It has a translucent flap that’s hard to see and when you do, it’s hard to get your fingers under it. Seems like a lot of trouble just to get to a slender slice of processed cheese.
So the flap has been redesigned. Kraft says they’ve added more texture, whatever that means, and made the wrapper thicker and sturdier so it won’t tear so easily when you open it.
When it comes to America leading the world in this century of computers and electric cars and renewable energy and artificial intelligence, this puts us over the top.
But I’ve buried the lead. Because it wasn’t Kraft “Singles” American cheese that pulled me to my computer to write about packaging. It was something else and I’ll start with a question: what do you need when you cut yourself and you’re bleeding? Answer: you need a Band-Aid, and you need it fast. That was me the other night. I was washing the grater from a blender and I nicked my finger. Not a big nick, although for a small one it bled copiously. But for the life of me (okay, a bit of an exaggeration but you get the point), it took the better part of a minute to open the wrapper to get out the Band-Aid. (Maybe it was longer. With the life draining out of me— oops, am I exaggerating again?— I had no time to look at a clock.)
First I had to find the split at the top of the paper wrapper so I could separate the front from the back. That should be easy, right? They designate it with a red stripe on which, in about 8-point font, it says “Peel.” (The other word in tiny font is “Decoller,” which is French for pretty much the same thing. Maybe the French cut themselves a lot with all that chop-chop-chopping.)
But when I peeled as recommended, which I assume you do the same way whether you’re American or French, the paper tore in the wrong place and the Band-Aid stayed stuck inside. I do understand the need to keep the bandage hygienically pure until it’s time to get it out but then, I need to get it out. Finally in frustration I pulled a second Band-Aid from the box and had an easier time of it. Maybe just half a minute.
Which brings us to the real villain in packaging: plastic. I mean, plastic so stiff you need a buzz-saw to cut through it. Consumer frustration has even led to a new term in the dictionary: “wrap rage.” Take a look at this axe-proof package of makeup for instance, the kind you’d find in a big box store.
Or these cheap drugstore eyeglasses, where they even use the protective plastic to protect the protective case.
In the retail industry they’ll tell you the hard plastic is necessary for a few reasons: to let potential buyers see a product without the barrier of a cardboard covering, to protect products during transport from factory to store, and mainly, in the case of the makeup for example, to keep shoplifters from snatching a few small containers and stashing them away in a hidden pocket when they leave the store. But that doesn’t explain the batteries.
What are they trying to prevent with packaging like this, where the batteries are in a heat-sealed blister-pack and you risk the partial amputation of a digit when you try tearing in to get a Triple-A? Seems to me, if someone sets out to shoplift Triple-A batteries, they’re going to grab the whole package of 36 and slip it in their pants. I mean, why think small? All the packaging does is make it easier for them to steal in bulk
You don’t have to wonder why they seal this machete in a heat-sealed blister-pack. But it raises a whole new question: if you don’t already have another machete, what are you going to use to open this one?
And children’s toys?
Would this kids’ set of walkie-talkies be a whole lot easier to conceal than the package that’s designed to protect it? If thieves want to find a way, they’ll find a way. Anyway, there are documented cases of honest buyers doing themselves serious harm trying to break into their own purchases with not just scissors and knives but razor blades, box cutters, even ice picks. And if your tool doesn’t hurt you, maybe the sharp-edged plastic itself will. The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimated one year that some 6,500 Americans hurt themselves badly enough while opening a package that they had to go to the ER. And that year was 2004. Now, almost 20 years later, there’s more plastic out there than ever before. Not so hot for the environment either.
There is another way that I think we’d all appreciate. Perforations in a package, or joints designed to tear apart. It surprises me that more manufacturers aren’t finding alternatives like these that would make our packages so much easier and so much safer to open. Maybe if they did, we wouldn’t spend so much time, after hurting ourselves, struggling to open a Band-Aid. About the only easy thing to open any more is the redesigned cellophane for a slice of American cheese.
Over almost five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 37-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.
Greg
It HAD to be said and i’m very glad you said it! Thanks
We need to prioritize less packaging over convenience! Too much plastic. There has to be a better way.