Through the Window | by Roy T. Bergold Jr.
This is the annual packaging issue. Now, I have ranted about packaging for practically the entire time I have written for this magazine. I figure it’s about time to pull together my thoughts, and this issue is the excuse.
First, packaging is convenience and temperature, not marketing. The restaurant is the package on the shelf and markets itself through media and local store marketing. Super market brands rely on the power of graphic packaging to stand out—we don’t. If it were my company, I wouldn’t spend one cent on package design. In fact, I would use whatever color paper works best with no logo whatsoever. As I have said, why decorate someone’s rose bush or the side of the highway with your logo?
Here’s a thought: Let’s standardize quick-serve packaging. Everyone uses the same package with no logos. Huge savings in molds, printing, quantity pricing, etc. When someone innovates nowadays, everyone else has the innovation almost immediately, so why not work together as an industry and develop one set of packaging used by everyone?
It’s practically the case with paper cups, wraps, and french fry packages right now. Let the top 100 quick serves fund the research to put together the program. Then we can start worrying about how to improve quality, service, and cleanliness instead of package design. I’ll even volunteer to work on the packaging committee.
Next topic: over-packaging. You know, in a wrap, in a box, in a bag. Yikes! This is still happening. My packaging committee would solve this problem for everyone. No bags would be allowed in the store unless you are carrying out. I was at a Major recently and watched a guy get his order all bagged up and then he sat down at a table. He probably was not asked if he was carrying out.
And let’s reduce the size and weight of packaging. Most wraps are too big and other packaging too heavy. I would love to see fresh food served on a tray mat with no wrap, but I know the arguments.
A couple of other ideas. Bring your own cup to your favorite quick serve like the c-stores are doing with coffee. Once people are trained, we can eliminate paper cups. Plus, bring your own cloth bag like the supermarkets, and we will put the food in it for carryout. No more bags.
While we’re at it, I would like to talk about the problem of quick-serve packaging litter. The roads in Arizona have some of the most beautiful scenery in the world except for the litter. The major quick serves should band together and create a national marketing campaign that makes it totally uncool to litter.
Target the young people with celebrities, a snappy slogan, and great contemporary music, and blanket the media, including the Internet. Use heroes from every walk, including sports, music, movies, TV, and maybe even organized religion. The objective is to make littering unthinkable and as out of it as Valley Speak. Go to the schools with a program that attacks litter, and if the school commits to executing it, they get a computer lab or something. McDonald’s did this with several programs like fire safety, Stranger Danger, and reading. It works as long as there is no commercialism.
Let’s face it, removing quick-serve packaging from the highway would be great for us. Let’s get the kids to the point that if they see someone litter, they write down the license plate and our national campaign will send a letter telling the person he was a bad boy. I bet law enforcement would work with us. That would put some teeth in litter laws, and make every kid who went through the program a deputy watching out for transgressors.
Part of our national program could also be to set up sites, like brush dumps, to bring your bags of litter, get them weighed, and be paid by the pound as a donation to the organization you specify. McDonald’s used to send out crew people in uniform to pick up in the neighborhood around the store. Imagine a national all-quick-serve day of cleanup. Every store in the country picks up around its location. What a great public relations event.
And let’s go back to handing out litter bags for our cars, that when filled and brought back to the restaurant, earns you a free Coke. We used to do that in the old days and it really worked. People appreciated the convenience of having a garbage bag for the car.
I guess what I am advocating is less packaging and packaging that is generic and as small as possible without losing the objectives of convenience and temperature. And don’t forget to enlist our youth to fight the battle against littering. “A car window is not a garbage can” is my suggested battle cry. I volunteer to work on the national marketing campaign. All we need is people, time, and money.
Whew, now that was a pretty heavy topic. So just to add a little levity, the other topic of this issue is cheese. Now, cheese is not as important to McDonald’s as it is to Wisconsin.
For example, when the Filet-O-Fish sandwich was invented, the first person to take a bite pronounced it delicious, and then opened it up to see what was inside. There was a half piece of cheese. The inventor proclaimed it perfect and said that a whole piece was too much cheesy flavor and he was right. So much for Wisconsin. Nice savings on food cost. Mclean Deluxe, meanwhile, had a 93 percent fat-free patty. It was supposed to be the diet burger of the century. It had about as much flavor as the box it came in. The only way we could sell any was with cheese. So much for fat-free.
A Peaceful Life, Happy Trails, and Happy Thanksgiving.