Expectations of food packaging

Many consumers try to avoid packaging waste when buying food. This shows the investigation "For the ton" of the market research institute YouGov. More than 1.000 people over 18 years have been interviewed. In addition, information from the YouGov database was included in the analysis, for which 70.000 Germans are interviewed on a yearly basis.

What do consumers want from food packaging? That depends on the product. For dry goods such as pasta, sweets and fruit and vegetables, environmental friendliness comes first. Simple disposal options are another important criterion for dry goods and confectionery. For fruits and vegetables, for 45 percent of respondents, the content in the packaging must be clearly visible to assess freshness and quality. For perishable foodstuffs such as fresh produce and dairy, consumers place the highest emphasis on hygiene issues such as the prevention of sprouts (63 and 58%), while greener is already in second place (53 and 54%).

In the meantime, when it comes to purchasing food, a large proportion of customers are turning to products that produce less waste, for the benefit of the environment - including significantly more older people from 60 years (81%) than 30 year olds (62%). Almost half of the Germans have already decided against a product once, because it was packaged in plastic. More than one in two would even change the main shopping mall if another nearby supermarket offered eco-friendly packaging for its products.

However, such surveys in the subjunctive and the actual willingness to put this into practice are at least questionable. Nevertheless, they provide a social clue as to where the journey will go in the long term.

Heike Kreutz and Harald Seitz, www.bzfe.de