Retail-ready packaging set to be the norm

The development and deployment of shelf-friendly or retail-ready packaging solutions was discussed during the Coles, Woolworths and ECRA panel at the 2012 AIP National Conference. The ‘big two’ supermarket chains want to see shelf-friendly packaging as the norm and are working with ECRA to assist the industry in developing robust, sustainable solutions.

Although shelf-ready packaging has been in place for around 15-20 years across Europe, Australia is only around eight years into its journey. Some products, such as confectionery and dental, have not taken up the retail-ready packaging trend as it is seen to be not a practical solution. However, the big two have no intentions of implementing further hang-sell shelving.

Matt Swindells, General Manager, Supply Chain Transformation, Coles, says retail-ready packaging provides better availability on the shelf, reduces rotation of stock, reduces product wastage and improves blocking and branding on the shelf. Improvement in safety for the stocking of the shelf is a compelling reason for the move.

According to Rod Evenden, General Manager - Strategy, Woolworths, 9 billion items are sold by Woolworths each year and most go onto the shelf one at a time. Therefore, anything that improves this process reaps massive rewards. The retail-ready packaging eliminates the requirement to load up products one at a time. As well as providing capital-cost savings, the packaging also results in significant time-cost savings.

Coles and Woolworths have worked together to establish some guidance for suppliers of product in retail-ready packaging. The ‘five easies’ for retail-ready packaging are as follows:

1. Easy to identify: ‘Shelf ready’ should be printed on the flap; four barcodes should be printed on adjacent and parallel sides; clear product identification using a strong clear font should be used on all sides so that shoppers can identify the variants of the product and store packers/fillers can identify the product in a crowded backroom.
2. Easy to open: front and side finger holes with perforation eliminate the need for cutting with a knife; tape should not cover the front lip.
3. Easy to shelve: As there are non-standard depths across the stores, the design must be optimised to suit both, with a variety of case counts such as two cartons side by side, one behind the other and one on top of the other.
4. Easy to shop: front lip should never be higher than around 20% otherwise the product may be hidden and the customers may not be able to easily take and return the product. The appearance of the front face must be considered as a branding opportunity.
5. Easy to dispose/recycle: all stores have the ability to collect board and shrink for recycling. The retail-ready packaging reduces product wastage through better stock rotation.

Swindells’ advice to the packaging industry is to keep it as simple as possible so that it is executed correctly on the shelf in the store. The packaging must be fit for purpose for the shelf loader as well as the consumer.

A recent innovation with retail-ready packaging has been the high-velocity shelf packaging. This is where a full pallet can be dropped into the shelf and is mainly used for fast-moving items. Chep has developed such a product which is currently being used at Coles for its private-label waters. According to Chep, other packaging of this nature will be developed if there is a commercial benefit.

The stores are not inventing anything new with retail-ready packaging, but there is now a heavy alignment to move to this type of packaging as much as possible. This opens up opportunities for the packaging industry to develop innovative shelf-ready solutions.