packaging | The Barefoot Spirit

Pakistan Takes a Stand on Single-Use Plastic Bags

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 17:00:47 +0000

Taking a trip to Kenya? Leave you plastic bags at home or face a $40,000 fine with up to 4 years in prison! Seems a little over the top? Two years ago, the Kenyans suddenly enacted the world’s toughest ban against single-use plastic bags. According to the Kenyans, “A sudden ban is easier to enforce than trying to collect tax or a fee, because there is no incentive to bribe (your way out of it).”

Drowning in Plastic

According to Pamela Constable of the Washington Post, just yesterday Pakistan suddenly banned all single-use polyethylene bags from their capital, Islamabad. Officials estimate that the city of about 1.5 million people produced and discarded 55 billion plastic bags a year. The bags ended up in parks and vacant lots, clogging sewers and drains, eaten by goats and dogs, and ultimately polluting canals and streams. Sound familiar?

“Something We have to Do!”

According to Malik Amin Aslam of the Ministry of Climate Change, which is spearheading the effort, “This is something we have to do. You cannot burn, bury, reuse, or recycle these bags.” This is part of a larger Green Initiative that Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Imran Khan is pushing. Last year it began with a program to plant 10 billion trees to combat deforestation. The fines in Pakistan won’t be as stiff as Kenya, but will certainly get everyone’s attention: $31 for using one, $63 for selling one, and $31,000 for manufacturing plastic bags. Since the national per capita income is only $1,200 per year, these are still pretty hefty penalties.

Time to Join the Parade

Over 40 countries have now either banned or taxed single-use plastic bags. Interestingly, Americans have yet to do so. We evidently think as a country that we can continue to use them without consequence, even though the “urban tumbleweeds” are right there blowing across our roads, hanging in our trees, and raggedly splayed out on our fences. China stopped taking plastic garbage from the US two years ago. Now, South East Asia is clamping down. Today, it’s our problem. Like the Pakistani Minister says, “You can’t burn, bury, recycle, or re-use them.” Why are we disregarding what other countries already know and are taking action on?

But, where will they Work?

Of course, the manufacturers of plastic bags in Pakistan have protested, citing layoffs of a half-million people. The Ministry is meeting with them to discover how the factories that produce plastic bags can be converted to produce other goods. Perhaps the message to business is why wait ‘til there’s a crisis and an outcry that forces change, like Kenya and Pakistan? Why not anticipate this mega-trend and make moves now to produce alternatives? Why not support fledgling companies who are solving this problem? This is a huge financial opportunity! There’s obviously a market for alternatives with 40 countries now on board. And what about laborers? These new companies will need that labor. The way we see it, producers of single-use plastic bags must change over now or get outlawed and out-sold by their competition that is doing so.

Many thanks to Kenya and Pakistan for showing the world “a brand new bag!”

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Would You Drink Water Out of a Can?

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Mon, 08 Jul 2019 02:04:40 +0000

A New York Times article released over the weekend, by David Yaffe-Bellany, raises some serious practical questions about water packaging we feel need more consideration.

Would you drink water out of a can? Or would you balk because you couldn’t see its clarity? Would you buy water in a clear glass container so you could see the water inside, even though it would cost more for heavy glass that was inert? Or would you buy it in clear, single-use, light, inexpensive plastic so you could see it even though you knew it was less likely to be recycled and more likely to poison the environment? This is the great dilemma: Convenience vs. Environmental Damage. So far, consumers are voting for convenience and price over safety.

Blind Trust

But now Pepsi’s betting that in order to save the environment, you will give up your demand to see if the water you buy is clear. They are betting that you will trust them to produce it clean and pure, and you will buy it from them in an aluminum can – even though you can’t see it until after you buy it. It will still be light, convenient, and inexpensive! You just can’t see it. They will be test marketing the concept next year in their purified still water brand, Aquafina.

This is an interesting gamble because aluminum is lightweight like plastic and apparently more inert. And according to the article, is more likely to be recycled due to its redemption value. In fact, worldwide only 9% of all the plastic ever made has been recycled while well over 50% of aluminum bought by consumers is reused. Pepsi says these changes should eliminate more than 8,000 metric tons of “virgin” plastic annually and 11,000 metric tons of greenhouse-gas emissions.

What’s interesting about the proposition is that, all things being equal, if you trust the producer, you could save the environment from a major source of plastic pollution. Even so, according to the Beverage Marketing Corp., plastic bottled water was up more than 5% in 2018. Consumers still want convenience at the expense of the environment. As of 2016, for the first time, American consumption of bottled water exceeded all other packaged soda combined. There is still a huge and growing demand for bottled water sometimes due to the lack of other drinkable water.

Is Aluminum the Answer?

Single-use plastic water packaging is a growing challenge that needs to be addressed. According to Sherrie Rosenblatt, spokeswoman for the Can Manufacturers Institute,

“In a world that is increasingly concerned about scarce resources, aluminum cans have the ability to be recycled over and over, forever, without losing quality.”

But is aluminum the answer? According to the EPA, nearly half of the aluminum consumed by Americans still winds up in landfill. This and the growth of the market mean more mining. This means more open-pit and strip bauxite mines (the ore from which aluminum is made), with more potential for air, water, and soil pollution. So aluminum is still not a panacea. But it may be an improvement. Never mind that giving up packaged water entirely might be the best thing for the environment.

A Better Way

We’re putting our money on more education, reusable containers, home tap water purifiers, reusable bottle refilling stations, outlawing single-use plastics, and significantly increasing the redemption value of glass and metals. How does your water get to you?

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Small Towns Stand Up to Big Plastic

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Mon, 01 Jul 2019 06:29:08 +0000

Just imagine what it might be like to eat a credit card. Now imagine eating a credit card EVERY WEEK! According to the World Wildlife Fund, humans now ingest the equivalent amount of a credit card in microplastics each week! This happens because microplastics are now ubiquitous in our environment from the water we drink to the food we eat.

The trillion dollar plastics industry is opposed to any efforts by the Federal Government and the State Governments to stem the tide of single-use plastics by law. But two states, Maryland and Maine, recently passed laws banning the use of at least polystyrene foam food containers, generally known as Styrofoam.

Meanwhile, in the last decade, in California alone, 120 cities and counties have passed some kind of regulations on polystyrene food containers. It’s evidently harder for the industry to affect the decisions of smaller governing bodies. Sebastopol, small town just down the road from us, recently passed an ordinance prohibiting the sale or use of disposable cups, burger boxes, clamshell containers and ice chests made of expanded polystyrene. This particular type of single-use convenience food and packaging material is especially dangerous since it is brittle, breaks up easily. It is mostly air so it blows around, and degrades into microplastics that get into the soil and waterways. It is very hard to capture.

Level Playing Field

So, what’s the effect on business? Well, for one thing, the regulations will create a somewhat level playing field in terms of competition. All retailers will be held to the same rules. Here-to-fore, businesses could claim that their competition was using the cheaper polystyrene and that if they voluntarily chose compostable products, they would be at a disadvantage because of the greater cost.

Reduced Costs for Compostables

Interestingly, as the demand for the alternatives grows, as we have seen in so many other alternative industries, the costs of those alternatives goes down. Sheer volume creates efficiencies of scale that are passed down through the competitive sales process to the retailer.

New Jobs and Industries

Opportunities for compostable and reusable containers are bound to increase. In the little town down the road, for instance, customers who bring their own reusable to-go containers get a 25-cent credit. All customers have to pay a takeout charge up to 10 cents to defray the costs associated with conversion to compostable lids, cups, straws, or utensils that may be more expensive in the short run. This, in effect, subsidizes the cost of reusable containers and single-use compostables.

Out of Control

So, how did the poisoning of the wildlife, the waterways, the soil, and even ourselves ever become so competitively advantageous to the takeout food industry? Simply, the entire cost of the post-sale packaging, including the hazardous effects were dumped on the environment and the consumer, not the producers. Now we are actually eating it! And because we gave them our money for their products, the producers became so strong, they could fund giant PR campaigns and lobbying efforts to protect themselves against the full costs of their packaging. The polystyrene producers are not fighting the ordinances so much as they are trying to use the government to stifle competition. This is just plain unfair and, as we’ve seen, dangerous!

Conclusion

We are business people and we support business, but not the monopoly of any industry. We think ordinances like this are good for business and innovation. They give new businesses a chance to compete. They raise the big picture issues that have to do with the real costs to the environment and our own health for which we as consumers are being asked to pick up the tab.

As Tip O’Neill, the former Speaker of the US House of Representatives used to say, “All politics is local!” When little towns have to pass ordinances against big companies to protect the health and welfare of their citizens, wildlife, and environment, we are witnessing a failure of State and Federal Governments to protect the health and welfare of their broader constituents. It’s not OK to allow big plastic to say, “Eat our plastic!”

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Is Your CPG Company on the Right Side of History?

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Mon, 05 Nov 2018 22:09:21 +0000

Because we successfully built a popular consumer packaged goods brand, now known the world over, we are often asked about packaging. Our audiences want to know, “What’s the latest in packaging?” and, “What are the new trends?” After all, the “P” in CPG is “package.”

In the 1967 movie, “The Graduate,” a young man, recently graduated from college, is given advice from his dad’s best friend, “I’ve got one word for you, Benjamin: Plastics.” If we were giving advice to college grads today, we would add one more word, “alternatives,” making the best advice we have to give, “plastic alternatives.”

To read the complete article, please visit Entrepreneur

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Label Damage Screams “Damaged Goods” to Your Customer

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 09 Jun 2016 17:00:37 +0000

In the packaged consumer goods industry, the condition of your label telegraphs the condition of your goods. Even though it has nothing to do with what’s inside your package, your consumer will avoid purchasing any product with a damaged label or package. And it makes sense, because she can only see the damaged package and is unable to determine the quality of the product until she opens it.

Space is at a premium in retail stores. You are lucky to get shelf space at all, let alone more than one space or “facing.” Brands can get pushed around by the competition, mispriced by the store, not reordered even though they are selling well, and stay in the back room and never make it to the shelf. So just “making it to the shelf” is an achievement.

You work your way up from the bottom shelf, where folks generally don’t look, to the eyelevel shelf. Eyelevel is the most coveted real-estate in the store because it’s where the customer naturally looks. We used to say, “If you’re not in their face, you’re not in the place!” But now that you made it, anything that is wrong with your label or packaging works against you.

For one thing, you can’t be in every store to inspect every one of your products, although you should try! Even though you have great quality control in your production facility, once it leaves the condition of your label is in the hands of folks who can scratch it, scuff it, and stain it between the back room and the shelf.

That label damage can impact sales in many ways:

First Impressions. A scuffed or otherwise compromised label or package can turn off a potential first time customer. “The product is still good; it’s just the label that got a little scuffed.” You want to say that, but you can’t! So customers buy another product with a pristine label.
Sales Blocking. If you have only one space on the shelf, you are at the mercy of the condition of the label that’s in front of your narrow line of products. If that label isn’t perfect, she won’t pull that one out and grab the one behind it. She will buy another brand. The sales of all your other products lined up single file behind the one in front with the scuffed label are stopped.
Spoils Pick Ups. The retailer will eventually notice that your sales have stopped and want to discontinue your product. But you will send a representative to that store to see why sales have stopped. You will have to pick up what the retailer considers spoils, or damaged goods if you want to continue in his store.
Lost Customers. You can even lose previously loyal customers due to a scuffed label. They may feel the quality is going down and try another brand in your category, like it, and leave you. All because of a damaged package.
Deliberate Damage. We sometimes discovered deliberate damage from competitors who knew the effects of an imperfect label. This is yet another reason for constant vigilance at the store level.

Here’s a tip we found very useful: If the label got scuffed, it was usually on the edges. So we avoided the appearance of most label scuffing with labels that were white on the edges, the same color as the paper underneath the printed image. Thus, many of the scuffs were not visible because we allowed a lot of white space around the edges.

But there’s no replacement for actually being there at the shelf once a week!

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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