The FINANCIAL — Nestlé is adapting the packaging of some of its products to ensure consumers of all ages can use them without difficulty,according to Nestlé.
One approach, established by the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, is called 'Inclusive Design'.
Nestlé is the first food and beverage company to adopt this method following its partnership with the university in 2009.
Inclusive Design is a process which seeks to develop product design to meet the needs of more people.
Companies can use a number of specialist Inclusive Design tools to determine how they can make products easier to use.In Australia, a special pair of gloves designed by researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute in Atlanta in the United States is helping Nestlé understand the impact of arthritis.
Nestlé packaging experts used the gloves on five of the company’s most popular products to simulate the way the debilitating disease restricts an arthritis sufferer’s movement and strength.
As a result, Nestlé launched an Accessibility Benchmarking Scale last year with Arthritis Australia.
The scale allows packaging designers to predict how many people can use their packaging. The move by Nestlé Australia to redesign some of its packaging has been welcomed by arthritis sufferer Wendy Favorito, a 41-year-old speech pathologist from Sydney.
Since she was diagnosed with juvenile arthritis at the age of six, everyday tasks such as making her children’s lunches or opening bottles have been extremely difficult.Nestlé is already creating easy-to-use packaging as a result of its design process.
The Nescafé Gold packaging was redesigned last year to make the company’s coffee product easier to use with a new easy-to-hold jar, ‘click and lock’ screw cap and easy-peelable foil membrane.Nescafé Gold is not the only Nestlé product that has had a design revamp.
In the United States, the company launched new packaging for its ready-to-drink brand Boost in February last year.
The complete nutritional drink range is targeted at elderly people who are malnourished or at risk of malnutrition.
To make it easier for such consumers to use the Boost product range, a global team of Nestlé experts worked together to redesign the packaging.
Improvements include an easy-to-grip bottle, easy-to-open cap without the inner seal and easy-to-handle multipack holders.
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