Single-serving packets for sauces, condiments, oils and spices, produced in soft gelatine. Biodegradable, compostable and even edible is 100% eco-friendly. It has scent and texture, so as to allow the identification of the product both visually, tactilely and by its aroma.

The fast food industry struggles today to reduce its environmental impact and enhance its green image. One of its main concerns is to adopt a sustainable and environmental packaging policy so as to reduce or eliminate the great amount of used components in fast food packaging, such as paper and plastic, which have a huge impact on our environment. Climate change, reduced biodiversity, flooding, deforestation, polluted air and water, and of course solid waste are the price to pay for a packaging that ends up on a trash can or on the side of the road only a few minutes after finishing one’s meal. The challenge was to develop an innovative and sustainable packaging for condiments and sauces, more specifically a single-serving packet for fast food and/or take-out meal with a full life cycle strategy, a cradle to grave methodology. The goal was to reduce overall packaging, increase efficiency, and minimize the varieties and mass of materials needed; in other words, to produce a good quality designed product that optimizes material and resources productivity by light-weighting and efficiency, in order to consume less material and improve sustainability in the fast food industry packaging.

The additional criteria was to develop a product that wasn’t a strange element to the food and gastronomy context and culture, like the larger percentage of packaging used at present, and that could be considered and perceived also as food itself. So the approach was to investigate how to produce a natural organic packaging, where the content could also be the container and the final product could free aroma and explain the texture of the condiment or it origin. Human health was also a major concern, especially when the packaging is in direct contact with food, so the criteria was also to eliminate toxic inks and labels, in order to produce an edible product, scientific research highlights the health impacts, especially on children and the elderly, of toxic inks, coatings, and dyes from food packaging.

For this project, the investigated material focused mainly on the gastronomy culture, organic and compostable materials , production technology and on the interaction with the client and food. Its was important that the packaging could be perceived with all the human senses - sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing - just like food is. So, aroma and flavour, texture and consistency, colour and shape where pre requirements as important as size and weight, space efficient pallet configurations, transport and distribution, etc. After researching many different typologies, the selected material was the soft gelatine, a material mainly used to produce medicine dosage capsules. It consists of a combination of gelatin, water, an opacifier and a plasticizer, such as glycerin and/or sorbitol to form a shell surrounding a fill. The gelatin is melted with water and plasticizer to form a molten gel mass and then it is cooled on the encapsulation machine into two ribbons, which will form the outer coating. The liquid, suspension, or semi-solid fill enters the top of the encapsulation machine as the two ribbons of gelatinous material are fed into each side which yields a formed capsule. The capsules are formed, filled, and sealed in a single operation. Then, they are spread on drying trays and placed in drying tunnels. This material, besides being totally accredit to human consumption, fulfils all the requisites of the project in a inexpensive and natural way. Fast food industry can improve the recyclability of their products by introducing innovative packaging design. The goal here was to go further, to make an impact and save money, eliminating waste and the need to implement strategies for recycling, by offering a biodegradavel, compostabel and edible packaging. It is amusing, friendly and inimitable; it’s more than just conscientious. It allows the consumer to interact with it, to put on his/her plate; to be part of the meal, something that nowadays he/she take only as disposable or garbage could now be part of our food and be elevated to a higher category.

The obvious question a designer asks himself when developing a packaging, especially for a liquid or a paste is: What is the better shape that could define that specific product or brand? Iconic, unique and paradigm shifting, SoftPack it’s more than a packaging or an idea, is the solidification of matter in a functional and playful way; it’s an alert for the fast food and pack aging industries that is possible to be sustainable and economic viable. A packaging should be more than a vessel that transports and protects a product from point A to B, or just a brand display that shouts on a supermarket shelf. It’s possible to be part of a culture, a rich and traditional one, gastronomy, and be elevated on to a higher category as the container and the content are at the same level, and, by doing so, imposes its presence promoting environmental consciousness.