Distant Village Packaging Puts
Sustainable Ideas into Practice

By Richard Cohen

Distant Village Packaging was established in July of 2000 with an objective to harness innovative artisan designs from around the world and embody them into product concepts desired by U.S. consumers. As a seasoned international business professional and traveler to more than 50 countries, the founder of Distant Village Packaging (i.e., me) brought to life a new business model for the packaging world.

Working with best-in-class artisan workshops in Asia and Latin America, Distant Village Packaging is the packaging link to creative product and packaging designers in U.S., Europe, and Asia that create custom handmade packaging. Distant Village Packaging focuses on design, quality, and workmanship, but it also has a strong internal company mission to innovate sustainable packaging and support the local communities with which they work by promoting fair trade, student scholarship programs, disaster relief, and more.

People, planet, profit

Artisan communities around the world embody a wealth of untapped talent and design innovation. Distant Village Packaging invests in the exploration and identification of quality workmanship and innovative design concepts. This is an essential part of the value and differentiation that Distant Village provides over traditional brokers or sourcing agents.

For Distant Village, design innovation, reliability, and quality workmanship is everything. Part of the responsibility and challenge in working with these communities is sustaining their livelihood by staying in their line of expertise. To support their efforts, Distant Village provides for advance payments for raw materials and labor of goods to ease cash-flow pains. The investment into the communities enables them to keep in their craft, which enables them to continue to develop new handmade packaging, retain their artisan skills, and provide for their families.

Distant Village Packaging established a position as an industry leader in treeless packaging and innovative design concepts. As fast following competition mimics innovative and successful products, we see ourselves as innovators. Distant Village Packaging is increasing its investment into communities and increasing its breadth of product, materials, and innovations. Product development constitutes the base material as well as the packaging design. Additionally, Distant Village Packaging will establish strategic relationships with a select network of packaging design companies as a way to hone their materials to fit client needs.

The next decade in packaging design will offer a wealth of opportunities for companies that do not hesitate to invest in sustainable designs. The potential is barely exposed, and it is the job of leading packaging design companies to explore and develop this new horizon.

Richard Cohen is the founder and president of Distant Village Packaging. For more, visit www.distantvillage.com.