No matter how good a food product may be, packaging can make or break a consumer's decision to buy it. As many of the items on this list demonstrate, an idea that seems great can often leave consumers scratching their heads or have unforeseen consequences--whether they be diminished food quality or legal battles.
Here are our top 10 food packaging oddities:
1. TROPICANA'S FRUITLESS ORANGE JUICE CARTON
A bad carton design once cost PepsiCo over $30 million. In 2009, Tropicana orange juice cartons were given a new design, ditching the iconic straw-impaled orange in favor of a plainer design featuring a glass of orange juice and a lot of dead space. As it turned out, the new design was too plain, making headlines and creating an almost instant drop in sales from customers who said it looked too “generic” or like a “discount store brand.” Thankfully, the design was scrapped, the orange returned and juice makers everywhere learned the value of placing fruit on their packaging.
(Image credit: Flickr user j_lai)
2. DEL MONTE'S INDIVIDUALLY WRAPPED BANANAS
In 2008, a Flickr user posted a photo of bananas in a Dundee, Scotland grocery store individually wrapped in Styrofoam meat trays. Bananas come naturally prepackaged, so the decision seems dubious at best. Del Monte Fresh Produce had the same idea a few years later when it tested the idea of selling individually wrapped bananas as a “Natural Energy Snack on the Go” in vending machines and convenience stores. Naturally, Jon Stewart ridiculed the bags on The Daily Show, but Del Monte Fresh Produce’s Vice President of Marketing Dionysios Christou defended the idea in an interview with Forbes by pointing out the bags’ “Controlled Ripening Technology.” That still wasn’t enough to stop green-minded consumers from cringing.
3. DURACELL ENERGY DRINK
About four years ago, a Duracell Energy Drink began appearing on blogs, even making its way onto Gizmodo at one point. Despite some confusion, the drink wasn’t a product of Procter & Gamble, but of a company in the Czech Republic. As you can guess, trademark lawyers inevitably got involved and, judging by the energy drink's dead website, won in the end. Finland’s Battery Energy Drink is still around, however, to energize customers who prefer to get their fix from a can made to look like a battery.
4. GERBER SINGLES
One classic example of food packaging flops is the 1974 release of Gerber Singles. Essentially baby food marketed to college students and single adults (and, sadly, in pretty much the same types of jars with a different label), Gerber’s experiment didn’t last long before it was pulled from shelves.
5. HEUBLEIN'S WINE & DINE
Prior to its 1982 merger with R. J. Reynolds Co., Heublein was one of America’s largest wine and spirit companies. During the mid-1970s, part of the company’s attempts to expand outside of the liquor market included the Wine & Dine dinner, which was meant to be a convenient pasta dinner with what looked like a mini bottle of wine, priced at $1.35. Unfortunately, many consumers were unaware that the “wine” was actually meant to be an ingredient in the pasta sauce and were unpleasantly surprised when they unknowingly took a sip without reading the directions.
6. DELUXE/MAXED OUT LUNCHABLES
Lunchables are among the many food items marketed to children that have changed in the wake of rising obesity concerns. During the years before children’s weight became a national issue, however, Kraft had several varieties of Lunchables with larger portions. “Deluxe” and “Maxed Out” Lunchables typically featured larger portions of food, resulting in as much as nine grams of saturated fat, around two-thirds the recommended daily maximum of sodium and 13 teaspoons of sugar. It’s no surprise that these larger Lunchables varieties were discontinued and relaunched with healthier options like their standard-sized counterparts.
7. KELLOGG'S BREAKFAST MATES
In 1997, Kellogg introduced Breakfast Mates, a product with cereal, spoon and milk all conveniently in a single-serving kit. The milk’s aseptic packaging even eliminated the need for constant refrigeration. Unfortunately, $30 million worth of ads showing how the kits made it easier for kids to make their own breakfast wasn’t enough to convince consumers of the added convenience, let alone get them to accept the idea of cereal with warm milk. It also didn’t help that Breakfast Mates were sold in the dairy case, and not the cereal aisle.
8. BBQ CHICKEN'S COL-POP CUP
South Korean restaurant chain BBQ Chicken (which has U.S. locations in California, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, New York, Virginia and Washington) offers the Col-Pop, a combination drink cup/food container that holds soda and popcorn chicken. While this is technically still offered, and thus not a flop, Serious Eats writer Adam Kuban did point out a couple of flaws in the design—condensation from the soda below the cup’s food container lid has the potential to affect some of the chicken, not to mention the diminished amount of soda you can fit in the cup as a result of the roughly two-inch insert.
9. BAGGED MILK
Milk sold in plastic bags has been the norm in Ontario, Canada since 1983, and is also the standard in countries like South Africa, Argentina, Hungary and China. The United Kingdom has even reportedly shifted to plastic bags over jugs, but the packaging hasn’t quite managed to catch on in the U.S. yet. Though they use less plastic and cost less to manufacture than single-use milk jugs, the bags are more susceptible to puncturing or spillage and can’t easily be resealed. Time may tell, though, if this is truly a flop or if we are simply behind the curve.
10. JAPAN'S INDIVIDUALLY WRAPPED CASHEWS
Japan is no stranger to odd items and packaging—as a matter of fact, there’s an entire blog dedicated to culinary oddities from the Land of the Rising Sun—but individually wrapped cashews take the cake. There’s reportedly nothing out of the ordinary about the size of the cashews, which makes the thought of someone purchasing and eating a single cashew all the more strange.
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