Why Crisps Explain Everything

This post is about crisp packets, but it could easily be about so many other types of packaging.

When you open a crisp packet, the crisps themselves rarely reach above halfway up the bag. I’ve been told that this extra space is so that the crisps don’t get crushed, but considering the only thing they’re ever squashed up against is other packets of crisps, I doubt this logic.

The real reason the bags are that size is because if they were smaller we would buy a rival brand, thinking that we’d get more value for money. I know this is a sweeping statement and not true for all of us, but there is always a reason behind marketing and product design. Even if the idea itself is flawed, there’s a reason for it. In this case, the reason is that bigger packets sell more than smaller packets. So is this the marketers’ fault, or ours as consumers?

Either way, I’m concerned. In a world where we’re trying to find any possible way to reduce waste, recycle more, eat local produce, and so on, do our own human tendencies fight against us? As long as we buy bigger crisp packets, will the marketers and product designers continue to make them excessively large?

The issue here is who takes the first step. It is in the interests of both parties to maintain the status quo because we’re happier with bigger packets and the crisp companies are happier with bigger sales. Someone has to initiate proceedings, and in my view the best chance is for it to be a third party like a supermarket.

It would be great advertising for any retailer to say “we’re not stocking this brand of crisp until they stop wasting packaging”. They’ve done it with plastic bags, so why not with crisp bags? In my experience, it’s a rare consumer who’ll criticise a company that makes a stand and acts in a socially responsible manner (at least with the little things in life like product packaging).

The idea of taking the first step applies in so many areas of climate change: is it possible, for example, to reconcile cutting carbon emissions with our love of cars? Who takes the first step there?

To me, the most successful companies in this era are going to be the ones who let us improve our carbon footprints (or recycle, or reduce waste, etc.) with the least possible disruption to our current lifestyles.

Nobody wants to be told that they’re killing the planet and they have to change everything they do. They want someone to say “here’s how we can change things with minimal disruption to your daily life”. I believe it’s possible, and it’s far easier to get someone to escalate their carbon consciousness from that position than drastically to try to alter everything they do all at once.

Work in increments, or you’ll simply scare people into denial.