Consumers’ purchasing behavior is driven by many factors, including taste, price and what the product is – or isn’t – made of.
They’re also increasingly concerned about the impact on the environment of the products they buy, something that consumer research continues to confirm.
A recent article by Grocery Dive makes the case that as shoppers continue to look for food products with eco-friendly packaging claims, manufacturers should strive to avoid confusion when making on-package statements about the product’s sustainable attributes.
To that end, RDSolutions’ integrated intelligence platform can help retailers pinpoint the right products for their shelves that their customers hold in high esteem in terms of eco-friendliness – more on that shortly.
Many consumers think they know the meaning of terms like “sustainable,” “recyclable” and “compostable,” and make an effort to purchase products labeled as such so they can be confident about eventually disposing of the packaging. But often, products are not so easily recycled or composted, and confusion exists over what the claims actually mean.
The Ecolabel Index, which tracks the use labeling claims globally, lists 456 such labels, which each have their own symbols and verbiage.
According to the Dive article, key considerations for educating the public while delivering on their demand for eco-friendly product packaging include:
- Standardizing the terms and symbols used to make sustainability claims
- More guidance for consumers on recognizing green packaging and how to properly dispose of it
- More communication from brands to share their sustainability goals
- Reformulations of plastic and redesigning packaging to use fewer materials
For their part, retailers and suppliers can take steps to ensure they’re providing consumers with the right products they’re seeking to better fulfill their eco-centric demands.
RDSolutions provides merchandising insights and inventory optimization tools that offer predictive analytics for product selection and inventory management, as well as demand forecasting tools to not only help better track retail trends but also improve delivery efficiency — getting products to the store should be sustainable, too.
RDSolutions’ Product360 is the industry’s most complete, data-driven product catalog, with more than 658 million data points ingested weekly. Just one component of our fully integrated suite of tools, it’s all part of putting actionable insights at your fingertips.
