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Yasmin Ahmed
Dizzie's mission is to eliminate grocery packaging waste. With a tried-and-tested reusable packaging system that's flourished in the four years since the company launched, Dizzie has now set its sights on the mainstream. Proving a hit with its loyal customers, the company has moved from a D2C to B2B model, seeking to disrupt the entire food industry with its standardised yet aspirational packaging framework. Watch this space, because Dizzie's system-changing solution could be the new normal for food packaging.
Although not derived from fossil fuels, Dizzie's reusable containers are made from 40% bio-polypropylene sourced from waste and residue oils. Despite the plastic, the fact that the containers can be reused 100 times and are designed to be ground up and recycled into new containers means they're a notable improvement on single-use plastic packs, and a genuinely waste-free systems change. If you offer a similar service to Dizzie, however, and want to go that extra mile, consider exploring alternative materials such as stainless Steel. German startup Circolution has developed reusable and traceable steel containers that are accepted in standard deposit machines across the country and can be endlessly recycled.
By Dizzie's own admission, the transition to reuse will only yield efficiencies if businesses are willing to adopt standardised packaging dimensions. While this may not initially appeal to some, Dizzie notes that it's something many brands across the food and beverage sector do already, citing Tetra Pak, soft drink cans, yoghurt pots, milk bottles, and so on as examples. To truly optimise a nationwide reuse system and eliminate disposable packaging, we need to pivot towards standard packaging containers — putting the focus back on a food item's quality and nutritional value, rather than the single-use, wasteful packaging it comes wrapped in.
While the transition towards standardised packaging may appear to limit design thinking and freedom, Dizzie's proposition is an opportunity to embrace sustainability as a source of inspiration. To design the packaging, Blond carried out extensive holistic research to envision a solution that saves on waste, carbon emissions, and storage space. Reflecting on the collaboration with Dizzie, the studio's founder and creative director, James Melia, said: "we have calculated that if everyone bought 10% of their weekly shop in reusable packaging, we'd save 19.4 billion pieces of plastic a year. As a design agency, that is a fantastic journey to be a part of." Embracing design as a multidisciplinary venture presents opportunities to enrich the creative process as well as benefit the health and wellbeing of society.
Dizzie isn't simply offering a sustainable packaging solution. From a brand's perspective, the opportunity to adopt a reusable packaging model comes with financial incentives that make sustainability a lucrative commercial venture with added economic value. Dizzie says its model bolsters customer retention and acquisition rates, and offsets the rising cost and dwindling availability of single-use packaging materials. Selling more than just sustainability is a sure way of garnering interest among businesses. At the end of the day, the numbers have to add up, and Dizzie has collected data from its work so far to demonstrate that they do. The result is a compelling case for a packaging model that looks set to be the future of the food industry.