In recent years there has been a focus on reduction of packaging within the food industry. There is a push towards package free fruit and vegetables and a move toward naming and shaming those companies with excess plastic. Plastic free options now exist for a large selection of food products from refill supermarkets to paper or organic based packaging.
However the cosmetics, toiletries and household goods industries lag behind. A visit to any chain drugstore or supermarket offers up only a minimal selection soaps in cardboard packages with every other aisle filled with plastic products. Even specialist organic shops only offer a handful of shampoo bars, perhaps a deodorant in a cardboard tube or a toothpaste in a glass jar; all at a price that is a multiple of the branded products in plastic products readily available in multiple colours and flavours.
Why is there a such a scarcity of choice? Is it a lack of demand from consumers? Or do suppliers have no incentive to change? Would an increase in demand be enough of an incentive or is an extra push needed from regulation or investors because the ROI from a change to products to enable plastic free packaging would not make sense from a financial perspective alone?
Over the next few months Thought Rocks aims to find the answers to some of these questions to understand what changes could and should be made to the systematic ecosystem to speed up beneficial innovations.
If anyone feels they have expertise to help in this journey please contact us at emily@thoughtrocks.co.uk
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