Packaging News

For a derivative of something as basic as milk, the variety of cheeses available is mind-boggling. The shopper is bombarded with choice: British hard cheeses such as cheddar or stilton share shelf space with Italian counterparts like parmesan.

The UK has a huge appetite for cheese. According to Kantar Worldpanel, the nation spent £2.385bn on cheese in the year ending 21 March 2010; while the data shows that demand is growing - spending leapt 13.5% between 2008 and 2009 and a further 3.2% between 2009 and 2010.

Appropriately, the scope of cheeses available is reflected by the many ways in which it is packaged. Traditional forms of packaging such as waxed paper are still in use; but a consumer scouring the shelves will find a bewildering array of packs - from squeezable tubes and zip-lock bags, to pop-out portioned cheeses and ready-grated cheese in easy-to-open bags.

Andy Knowles, chief executive of packaging design agency JKR, says that in recent years a new dynamic has emerged. "There is a shift away from own-label into branded cheeses," he says. "Cheese is moving away from being a commodity and there is a lot of development in value-added, convenience kids' cheeses, such as Cheestrings and Babybel."

Packaging group Amcor Flexibles has several hundred cheese clients on its books, including Kerry Foods in the UK. Philippe Scherrer, marketing manager for dairy and meat at Amcor Flexibles, agrees with Knowles that consumer habits have changed in the last decade. "For a long time on the continent and in the UK, consumers had been buying small packs of cheese for consumption at home. In the last 10 years, producers have started to sell sliced cheese. These products may require different packaging equipment and different materials."

He reckons that changing societal habits have fuelled greater packaging variation. "People are more individual than 10 or 15 years ago and their time, space and perception of things has changed a lot." This has led to the development of on-the-go packs, for instance. "One of the challenges for manufacturers and ourselves is to find solutions that are appropriate and not perceived as over-packaging."

Knowles argues that the vast choice of cheese on the market - especially the plethora of generic own-labels - can overwhelm the consumer. "The end game for lots of categories is that they become a commodity," he argues. "Especially with standard-format cheddar, you end up with the cheapest possible packaging at the lowest price, with lots of alternatives around the same theme, which ends up being confusing. You end up with an over-complicated and under-enjoyed category.

"At that point, you get the pioneers doing something different, with the product sold at a premium price. Then you see the development of a lot of value-added stuff in terms of taste, quality and packaging. And it becomes less price-driven."

His point is supported by Kantar data. Processed cheese, which encompasses ‘fun' cheeses such as Kerry Foods' Cheestrings, Kavli's Primula squeezable cheese tubes and Dairylea, accounted for a 10.1% share of the total market in the last year, with UK consumers spending more than £240m on the category. This reflects a 2.6% growth between 2009 and 2010 and a 6.7% growth over the same period between 2008 and 2009.

Brands have both spearheaded and capitalised on this growth. At the end of 2008, JKR and its client Kerry Foods unveiled a redesign of Cheestrings, highlighting the brand's natural credentials. "Children's cheeses have been in development for a long time, but have become much more developed with different products," says Knowles.

But innovation is not limited to kids' cheese. Cathedral City owner Dairy Crest broke with convention when it launched the UK sector's first zip-seal pack. First Milk sales and marketing director Richard Hollingdale, who worked at Dairy Crest at the time, said consumers originally rejected the proposition because they were unused to cheese packaged in looser packaging.

"Now it's clearly become part of the mainstream purchasing pattern of the consumer," he says, adding that First Milk has followed in Dairy Crest's footsteps (see case study).

Beyond resealable packaging, Amcor has developed a pack with laser-scored opening for easy access. The format is so easy to open that it has been endorsed by the Swedish Rheumatism Association. The group has also developed a grated-cheese pack for Cathedral City, which uses a re-closeable adhesive strip.

But innovative forms of packaging are subject to technical constraints, so coming up with a new type of pack requires balancing design with functionality.

For example, Amcor Flexibles' Scherrer says that while flexible material has its advantages, there are practical limitations. "We are only one part of the chain and if we want to sell a product that is an interesting shape and the line speed is reduced by 50%, the cost of production will be much higher," he says.

Safety and integrity are other considerations. "When you add complexity to packaging in terms of convenience - for example, resealable packs - one of the questions becomes: what is the safety of your system?" Scherring adds. "At high speed you want to be sure there are no leakages."

Further down the line, the packs have to look good on-shelf and be easy for consumers to open. Knowles says that strong branding is growing in popularity - demonstrated by the use of strong graphics and a move away from cheaply produced "shiny plastic" cheeses, where the graphics were designed by the printers. He says: "At the commodity end of the market, people go for the cheapest. But packaging is getting more confident - by investing in design, brands are getting a return on investment."

While cheese producers continue to embrace innovation, traditional materials have not fallen from favour. "Waxed paper has been a traditional [form of] packaging and we have continued to use and include paper in our product development," Scherrer says. Such developments include Panorama, a paper strip laminated with a variety of substrates to create a window in the pack.

Scherrer predicts more innovation from the cheese market. "There are still a lot of products that are difficult to open and I believe that will change more and more," he says. Hollingdale, too, expects more innovation. In particular he says mass-market brands will strive to further reduce packaging weight.

We should expect to see as many types of packaging as there are number of cheeses on the supermarket shelves in the near future.