Making Better Boxes by Thinking Outside of Them

Walmart announced earlier this month that it was innovating the way it packages donuts—and I’ve got to say, I’m impressed.

Via Walmart

This new packaging, which simply lines the donuts up vertically in a straight line, uses 18 percent less paperboard and still has room to fit an extra donut—making it a perfect baker’s dozen. All this while making the donuts easier to carry home. It’s notable that in every single bakery I’ve ever been to, the donuts were packaged the same way. Now, I’m not an expert on the history of donut packaging, but I’m pretty sure this has been the norm for generations. You can certainly tell from a Google image search that it’s the standard today:

Google search for “Dozen Donuts”

Walmart deserves praise for this innovation and for their other recent efforts to reduce packaging. I love that they took something that has been taken for granted—something nobody thought to innovate—and decided that there might be a better way to make it.

And yes, I’m aware that it might seem a little hyperbolic to heap compliments on Walmart for a donut box (although you should know that we geek out over boxes on this blog regularly, so deal with it), so I’m going to transition to why this makes me pretty excited.

Just last week I posted a gallery of bad packaging that we’ve been collecting over the last few months, but it hardly represents every poorly packaged item we’ve seen online. On average, someone tweets about “wasteful packaging” three times a day—and that’s only counting people who use the adjective “wasteful” when describing their packaging. Even famous celebrities such as Neko Case are sharing their packaging gripes.

And the great thing about this is that companies all over the country are taking note. Walmart’s recent efforts to reduce packaging is only one of many examples of companies who’ve seen the light. Rod Gallaway, the vice president of logistics strategy, global design, and engineering at Staples, said:  “The number one feedback item [from customers] was the number of boxes and the size of them. We set out to find a solution that would address that as well as be friendly to the earth.” That solution was Packsize’s On Demand Packaging^®. Packsize machines are now being installed in Staples fulfillment centers across the country.

If you would like to learn how to revolutionize the way you package your products, contact us here at Packsize by clicking the button below: