Packaging as a competitive and environmental improvement resource

In connection with the implementation of Scandinavia’s first retail conference – Scandinavian Retail Forum – many well-known, interested international names participated, including our own Swedish packaging guru, Gunilla Jönsson.

In her calm yet determined way, packaging professor, Gunilla Jönsson described how packaging has become both a competitive resource on the market and a part of the actual product, but perhaps to an even larger extent, a vital component for efficient logistics and distribution.

“I believe that packaging is the foundation for a sustainable society. There are many positive examples of ingenious packaging, but today what is lacking is that there is no connection between knowledge about technology and socio-economic knowledge. It is at the intersection between products, packaging logistics and marketing that we can achieve results,” says Gunilla Jönsson.

Customer value, costs and the environment

As an example of when a product is adapted to distribution and logistics she shows a picture of Ikea’s tea candles, which are now packaged in squares instead of bags. The measure has resulted in that it is possible to pack 360 instead of 250 units per pallet. And by cutting away the wick a little, the filling ratio was substantially increased. The need for pallets has therefore been reduced by thirty percent, which in turn has decreased the need for storage space and transport capacity. Together with Ikea, Gunilla Jönsson and colleagues at Lund University have calculated that the effect of the well-thought-out packaging totals 371,000 Euro in reduced handling costs and 186 fewer annual work days in shops. If every package is developed and optimized in the same way then it is easy to see that the savings will be considerable.

“This is where IKEA makes its money. They construct packaging, products and flows as a whole! This involves combining consumer values, distribution efficiency and responsibility for sustainability. The demand for sustainability means that you have to be innovative,” says Gunilla Jönsson, and asks the rhetorical question; “why are canned goods round?” Her own answer is that they have survived since the Napoleonic wars and that we have a much too conservative attitude towards our packaging. As an example she mentions that it requires less than half as much space to transport rectangular tetra-packs as compared with the old containers. Gunilla Jönsson is convinced that the climate issue will drive the development of logistics and distribution, and through that, also packaging. “We are now seeing how in Holland they are forbidding free city distribution. Now, everything will be assembled at hubs outside the cities. There, the goods will be loaded together and transported, even on bicycles!

Customer insight

According to Gunilla Jönsson the foremost challenge is optimizing the demands for cost and resource efficiency with the demands for customer and consumer value. These demands are not in conflict, she says, but are often highly compatible. To succeed, customer insight is needed, in other words, an understanding for customers’ implicit and explicit needs.

“Our research shows that the retail trade considers products and packaging as “an offer” to consumers. That is an inside-out perspective that will not hold up in the long run. That is why Gunilla Jönsson is looking for more cooperation with customers and consumers in order to get the understanding that is required to develop the packaging solutions of the future.

Increased interest for packaging logistics

Packaging logistics is a relatively new research area that considers packaging to be a part of the logistics chain. Driven by increased competition, pressure on prices and environmental demands, packaging logistics has increased strongly in recent years. According to Gunilla Jönsson, one of the most exciting things happening in this area is what she refers to as “the conversion from closed to open systems”. In brief, the conversion to broader, joint systems for labeling, packaging, transport and distribution that takes into consideration the surroundings and is integrated with these surroundings.

“This is where IKEA makes its money. They construct packaging, products and flows as a whole!”

Gunilla Jönsson

About Gunilla Jönsson

Gunilla Jönsson, born 1943, is professor in Packaging Logistics at the Faculty of Engineering at Lund University and is the person that has developed the research area at the college since 1994. Gunilla Jönsson grew up in Grängesberg, Dalarna, as a fourth generation civil engineer. She became a civil engineer in mechanical engineering at Chalmers in 1967, worked as a testing engineer at Packforsk, and studied at Michigan State University where she became assistant professor in 1973. From 1977 she worked at SCA Packaging. Through several board assignments – including being a member of the boards of IVA, Vinnova and SCA Packaging – Gunilla Jönsson has extensive experience from the business sector, which she has benefited from in her research.