Doing More With Less In Sustainable Consumption
Whether it’s packaging evolutions or ingredient replacements, food and beverage brands are making big strides to drive healthier decision making and more conscientious consumption.
Do a little good while you drink
Beer brands across the nation are inspiring us to raise the bar before bellying up to it.
Toast Ale, brought to us in a minimalistic and colorful can, is brewed from surplus fresh bread to bring attention to our mended food system and excessive bread waste.
Aeronaut Brewing Co. and Mass Audobon pair up to release “For The Birds IPA,” which gives its proceeds directly to nature conservation, specifically to birds in rural and urban areas.
Wise Apple reminds us of the Imperfect Produce Campaign by making sustainable hard cider from “ugly apples” that would have otherwise gone to waste.
Or substitute the drinking all together
Other brands are inspiring less booze (and plastic) consumption altogether.
Nippon Paper Group, a Japanese manufacturing company, recently developed a new type of paper container called SPOPS that can store liquids without disintegrating.
In an effort to minimize the amount of waste that pollutes the ocean, Boxed Water is Better invited people to take a ‘No-Plastic Pledge’ to give up plastic bottles for 30 days.
Gorilla Juice recently announced the launch of three new (and quite vegan) juicy protein flavors including ‘Strawberry Shebang,’ ‘Caramel Latte Crush,’ and ‘Game, Set and Matcha’.
Eat less (real) meat
Though alternative meat burgers have been around a while, brands are finding ways to make them far more appealing.
Impossible Foods partnered with Burger King to create the Impossible Whopper which quickly broke through the clutter of other fast-food meat-free options many identified as “tasteless.”
With a multi-billion-dollar race to replace the egg – a fight many brands are hoping to win – JUST’s vegan egg-replacement made from plants continues to delight us with its great taste and beautiful packaging.
The fast-casual restaurant HipCityVeg thought up a new way to excite us about meat-free options by thinking like a kid – the new Vegan ‘Happy Meal’ is making quite the splash in their DC location.
But don’t forget the sauce
In a far less saturated space, some brands are working hard to make even the accoutrements more earth-friendly.
MARK Studio got our attention with the vibrant packaging design for the line of condiments that turns “ugly” fruit and vegetables into a condiment, showing us exactly how many veggies were “saved” in the making of each product.
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The Drexel Food Lab set out to fight wasted produce with the production of its Sweet, Spicy & Sour ‘Rescued Relish’ made from excess produce from Philabundance, a Philadelphia anti-hunger organization.
And finish with some less guilty pleasures
It’s hard enough to find healthy desserts that are actually low in added sugars, but to find ones that are doing good for the environment is a whole new level of guilt-free goodness.
It’s hard to imagine a popsicle inside a material besides plastic, but somehow this small family business, Lickalix found a way to make its plastic-free packaging capable of decomposing in 12 weeks.
The last thing we expected to be infused into our ice cream is beans and barbecue sauce, but Salt & Straw found a way, launching its new camping series ice cream line with ‘Berries, Beans & BBQ Sauce’ hitting shelves.
And if beans don’t scare you off, maybe crickets will. Crickers was introduced on Kickstarter as “the cookie that can save the world,” with a cookie that’s made entirely of crickets and chocolate protein.
What do these brands have in common?
Brands are taking us out of our everyday routine to think not only about the origin of what we are consuming, but the impact of what our consumption makes on the world at large.
Food and beverage brands that provide a purpose on their packaging or a cause in their creation have the ability to make you stop and think while you’re enjoying it, which means they’ll also have the ability to make you stop and think at shelf, too. Cause-based brands create a sense of stopping power others don’t, and in doing so, they can initiate a series of choices that eventually lead to a lifestyle shift in product consumption.
At BrandJuice, we seek to find platforms where we can share the things we care about, while also learning from the impact-makers out there who have differentiated their brand to tell their story and make an impact on their community. Here’s an example of how other brands have done this. How are you leaving your mark? Let’s chat about it.