Now that I am nearly as old as Methuselah, I have to face up to the fact that I am no longer a babe magnet! And, as I stumble around in the early hours of the morning getting ready for work – straightening out a skeleton that is in desperate need of a 100 000-mile service – I have at long last realised what it means to suffer from arthritis and other ailments that beset old timers.
Now I have sympathy for those who have suffered with thoughtless and inadequate packaging for so very long. Suddenly, I can identify with them.
While the packaging industry has made a little progress towards a problem that is never going to go away, there is so much work still to be done before it can truthfully say that it cares. It should care for two reasons. The first concerns just plain humanity. The second is based on profit.
Working on the premise that packaging users and suppliers do not want to limit their market and subsequent profitability, one would think that they would want to both develop the fast-expanding market for the over 60s by paying more attention to openability and legibility… but few do even though people are living so much longer.
It has been left to the Faraday Packaging Partnership to take up the gauntlet to take the stress of opening packaging away from those least able to cope with it.
Packaging Today International will give this project all the support that it deserves. In addition, the magazine will be proud to support packaging suppliers who sponsor the project.
Today I have got a bag of Kettle Chips to prize open for my lunch – should I jump on it or stab it with a pair of office scissors? The pack certainly keeps my New York Cheddar crisps fresh but it also acts as a jailer. Perhaps, I should stab the designer!