Design assessment framework for food packaging integrating consumer preferences and environmental impact

Abstract

Packaging designs are aimed at lowering the life cycle environmental impact of products to pursue sustainability; however, such designs are not necessarily favored by consumers. To realize a truly sustainable packaging that consumers would actually select, packaging design should integrate consumer-preferred functions with low environmental impact. In other words, packaging design can influence consumer preferences by implementing specific packaging functions. However, the quantitative relationships between the consumer preferences and environmental impact of products with varying packaging designs are still to be revealed, which hinders the integration of these relationships in the packaging design procedure. In this study, a framework was developed to assist packaging designers in integrating consumer preferences and environmental impact during their design procedures. Our framework comprises three stages. The first two stages assess design options with regard to environmental impact and consumer preferences. The last stage integrates the results of the previous two stages based on the concept of eco-efficiency. To demonstrate the practicability of our framework, small portion sizes of potato salad products were analyzed as a case study. In the case study, the environmental impact and consumer preferences were assessed for 18 design options with different packaging functions using life cycle assessment and choice-based conjoint analysis, respectively. Furthermore, the relationships between them were quantitatively examined by integrating the assessment results. The case study results showed the trade-offs between the environmental and functional aspects, and the design option that seemed best in one respect did not always have the highest eco-efficiency. The results also indicated that our framework can support packaging designers in selecting consumer-preferred options with low environmental impact.