Packaging should be a pushover

Words: 420
Reading Time: 1 minute 24 seconds

Blister packaging, particularly around small products like pills, is a frequently recurring source of exasperation to me. I am glad to find I am not alone.

According to a British study, over 60,000 people receive hospital treatment each year due to injuries from opening food packaging. When you add in similar injuries from opening packages on products other than food – including medicines themselves – then the cost to the British taxpayer is staggering.

In 2003 the Daily Telegraph coined the term “wrap rage” for this ingredient of consumer anger and disgust, but the march to encase everything on the planet in plastic seems relentless.

Sometimes regulations dictate that some OTC drugs have tamper resistance to deter people opening them in the shop; other regulations are aimed at child-resistance as an adjunct to health and safety. But these are a minority of cases.

Frequently packages are intentionally made difficult to open to reduce pilfering and shoplifting. Hard plastic clamshell packs also protect products while they are being shipped. This is more about saving the retailer and the manufacturer money. There is no element of either healthy and safety, or consumer interest.

There are many possible solutions to allow easy access to package contents and many products that simply do not warrant blister packs. Pills where there is no place for day-labelling is a good example. If vitamins can come in a single, tamper-proof pot, why not these too?

However, this relies entirely on the goodwill and commercial interests of manufacturers and retailers. I cannot recall a single instance of a product moving from blister packaging to some other form of container.

And how many service companies also make product-access equally difficult in less obvious, but equally deleterious ways? Unanswered calls, limited availability, poor tenders, untailored offerings – the list goes on.

In many cases use of blister packs is a result of a we’re-here-because-we’re-here-because-we’re here mentality. Everybody does it in this industry. It’s standard practice.

The sound of minds clanging shut is deafening.

Why change? Here are three good reasons:
1) The first in any product field to break ranks and make life easier for consumers will clean the plates of their competitors;
2) An increasing percentage of the population is among those who have great purchasing power, but suffer disproportionately from this problem – the grey vote;
3) Not removing an adverse experience at the point of consumption, when there is ample opportunity and advantage in doing so, is simply bad for business – and you are supposed to be in business, aren’t you?