The Foodservice & Packaging Institute reaches out to operators in the name of innovation.
It really isn’t a stretch to say that, without packaging, the quick-serve industry as we know it today wouldn’t exist. Let us count some of the ways:
Okay, so it’s important. But, really, how much time do we spend thinking about the packaging we use? Don’t we often just want the cheapest thing we can lay our hands on? Ask John Burke, executive director of the Foodservice & Packaging Institute, if operators pay enough attention to packaging, and you get a direct, almost sad response: “Oh, absolutely not.” But he’d like that to change.
Burke’s organization is a northern Virginia-based trade group that serves manufacturers of packaging for the foodservice industry---Dixie, Genpak, Huhtamaki, and the like---and they recently launched an affiliate program that invites foodservice operators to join them in thinking about the boxes, bags, cups, and other receptacles in which we serve our food and drink.
“We had been looking for ways to try to create more opportunities for interaction with operators, who are our members’ customers,” Burke says of the affiliate program’s genesis. “Some operators use distributors, and others go through the purchasing organization of their chain, but in both cases, our manufacturing members go through someone else to get to the people who are the end-users of our products.”
Because that direct communication was lacking, FPI launched its affiliate program. According to Burke, one of the goals of the program is to answer some basic but key questions: How can we improve the packaging we have? What are the wants, needs, and desires of operators? What do they need in order to serve consumers?
“The best way to have that kind of discussion is directly,” says Burke. “And to do it in a forum where you are wide open and can talk about anything and explore ideas.”
That’s an important point. Many times, when packaging manufacturers meet with distributors or purchasing groups, the discussion focuses on nuts and bolts, much of it negative—like a shipment not arriving on time, or a particular product having a defect. But an open forum between manufacturers and operators, Burke believes, will make for positive discussion that ultimately results in innovation.
And innovation is the ultimate goal. It’s not necessarily something where you can point to a specific ROI; rather it’s something that can move a whole industry forward.
Though the program is new and no official get-togethers have happened yet, FPI has already signed up about 20 affiliates, ranging from folks at small chains like Which Wich to behemoths like YUM! Brands.
Affiliate membership is free of charge. For more information, contact FPI’s Lynn Rosseth at 703.538.2800 or lrosseth@fpi.org.
