Is it Low-Sodium Yet?

The health and wellness craze is entering a new era, and package design strategies must adapt to the way today's consumers are thinking about food. It's quite evident that wellness is on the minds of most consumers, but the ways they are trying to achieve wellness are changing. Strict diets and drastic changes in eating habits are being dismissed in favor of gradual diet adjustments and incremental health gains.

One packaging trend that has gained traction is portion packs—often 100 calorie snack packs—that appeal to kids and adults alike. Another trend is developing more options of low sodium and low saturated fat products for consumers. These trends indicate that consumers don 't want to spend time thinking about their health, but they still want healthier habits. It falls on good package design to convey the healthy benefits of a product quickly and concisely.

It is becoming conventional wisdom that retail packaging cannot communicate more than three or four benefit messages effectively on the front panel of a package. The reason is that consumers do not want to (or can't) spend that much time with a package at the shelf. Campbell's Soup Company is fully aware of this fact, and the design staff there has refined their package design philosophies to be clean and clear. Campbell's has to be especially clear because of the many options they are presenting to their customers. Campbell's now sells over 200 SKUs of soup products, and many of those SKUs will be affected by their expansive low-sodium campaign and current rebranding strategies.

In this issue, you will also learn about how the wellness trend is affecting package design and substrate choices in microwaveable packaging and food can innovations. Other columns cover research techniques and pitfalls when redesigning existing brands and how "trade dress" can protect your packaging from copycats at retail. Please feel free to share your successful rebranding projects, and we'll reflect your insights back to your design community in the coming months.

Ron Romanik
Editor-in-Chief
rromanik@lyonsmediainc.com