Image source - http://www.jamesdysonaward.org/projects/bump-mark-bio-reactive-food-expiry-label/

Food waste in Britain is shockingly high with over four million tonnes thrown out of households each year. It seems that the British are hung up on sell by dates, best before dates and use by dates causing people to throw away food before it has actually gone bad.  Unfortunately this means perfectly good food is wasted and the amount of rubbish including plastic cups and lids sent to landfills is increased. A newly thought out packaging idea could help increase awareness of food and save it from the bin, or so we hope. 

Solveiga Pakstaite a 22 year old designer was carrying out research on how blind people use public transport effectively. The study left her asking more questions though, in particular, how blind people know the use by date of a food product. She said “One day I thought ‘how on Earth do blind people know when their food expires because they can’t read the expiry dates and they don’t know what to eat in the fridge first'". Source - http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jan/25/bump-mark-packaging-innovation-cut-uk-yearly-12bn-food-waste-mountain

Solveiga has come up with something called the Bump Mark, although it’s early days it is a working progress. The Bump Mark is a label that is attached to food packaging but as the product deteriorates or turns bad the label changes shape. The labels begins as smooth and curved indicating to consumers that the product is still edible. If however the food has decayed the label will form a plastic bump that can be felt when the fingers are ran cross the labels surface.

This idea is not only great for the blind but a brilliant idea for those who struggle to keep food beyond their use by date. Despite food being out of date according to packaging, it is a lot of the time still good to eat.  We as humans don’t use our senses enough by smelling or tasting a food to determine if it is still fresh. If a product is off you will know about it as it will taste or smell bad. The Bump Mark is designed to eliminate the use of dates on food packaging so that consumers have a better understanding of when produce become spoiled. 

This should help food to be eaten rather than wasted as there is currently around £12bn worth of food ad drink binned each year, with the majority of it still edible.  This is a sad revelation especially when we consider that there are people in this world who have little or no food at all. Our perception of food is that we have plenty and wasting it is not a big deal.  This however is the wrong way to look at things, we should be saving our resources and our money by making sure we eat responsibly. 

Image source - http://www.jamesdysonaward.org/projects/bump-mark-bio-reactive-food-expiry-label/

Food waste in Britain is shockingly high with over four million tonnes thrown out of households each year. It seems that the British are hung up on sell by dates, best before dates and use by dates causing people to throw away food before it has actually gone bad.  Unfortunately this means perfectly good food is wasted and the amount of rubbish including plastic cups and lids sent to landfills is increased. A newly thought out packaging idea could help increase awareness of food and save it from the bin, or so we hope. 

Solveiga Pakstaite a 22 year old designer was carrying out research on how blind people use public transport effectively. The study left her asking more questions though, in particular, how blind people know the use by date of a food product. She said “One day I thought ‘how on Earth do blind people know when their food expires because they can’t read the expiry dates and they don’t know what to eat in the fridge first'". Source - http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jan/25/bump-mark-packaging-innovation-cut-uk-yearly-12bn-food-waste-mountain

Solveiga has come up with something called the Bump Mark, although it’s early days it is a working progress. The Bump Mark is a label that is attached to food packaging but as the product deteriorates or turns bad the label changes shape. The labels begins as smooth and curved indicating to consumers that the product is still edible. If however the food has decayed the label will form a plastic bump that can be felt when the fingers are ran cross the labels surface.

This idea is not only great for the blind but a brilliant idea for those who struggle to keep food beyond their use by date. Despite food being out of date according to packaging, it is a lot of the time still good to eat.  We as humans don’t use our senses enough by smelling or tasting a food to determine if it is still fresh. If a product is off you will know about it as it will taste or smell bad. The Bump Mark is designed to eliminate the use of dates on food packaging so that consumers have a better understanding of when produce become spoiled. 

This should help food to be eaten rather than wasted as there is currently around £12bn worth of food ad drink binned each year, with the majority of it still edible.  This is a sad revelation especially when we consider that there are people in this world who have little or no food at all. Our perception of food is that we have plenty and wasting it is not a big deal.  This however is the wrong way to look at things, we should be saving our resources and our money by making sure we eat responsibly.