As brand strategists and designers in the food and drink industry we’re having more and more conversations with clients around sustainability. It is clearly a paramount factor in branding and packaging, not only to do your bit for the environment but to stand up to today’s consumers’ expectations.
Whether you’re launching a new sustainable brand or looking to make changes to your existing food or drink business, here are some consumer attitudes and stats that should help you to know you’re doing the right thing.
Transparency
- People want to know the real story behind their food, and how that item made its way from the source to the store (Whole Foods Market’s Trends for 2018).
- Presented with two identical products, shoppers will typically go with the one that has a sustainable certification, or that somehow tells its backstory (Hartman Group Report).
- 8 in 10 shoppers check the origin [of products] (Provenance).
Plastic & recycling
- Blue Planet 2, which had over 14 million viewers for the first episode alone, resulted in searches on ‘plastic recycling’ rising by 55% following the programme’s finale (Themarketingblog, Hitwise).
- Since the launch of Greenpeace’s End Ocean Plastics campaign, over half a million people have signed a petition calling on Coca-Cola to do something to address the issue of ocean plastics (Creative Review).
Sustainability wins
- 72% of millennials in the UK are willing to pay more for products from companies committed to positive social and environmental impact (Provenance).
- For millennials, sustainability is more important than convenience (Business Insider, A.T. Kearney Analysis).
- More than 21% of people said they would actively choose brands if they made their sustainability credentials clearer on their packaging and in their marketing (Unilever Report, 2017).
