ob's Red Mill has been on shelves since 1978. For most of that run, the packaging worked: warm, approachable, built around a founder's face and a genuine story about whole grains. Then the category changed. Better-for-you brands multiplied, health food went mainstream, and the heritage positioning that once helped Bob's stand out started blending into an aisle where everyone is now fighting for the same "wholesome and honest" shelf space.

This week the brand released its most comprehensive redesign in decades: all 200+ SKUs rebuilt with hand-painted Americana visuals, richer color, bigger type, and a stronger ingredient-forward hierarchy. It's unmistakable at shelf distance in a way it wasn't before. What's interesting isn't just the output. It's the brief behind it: the design team was asked to "amplify what's already working." Not modernize. Not chase a trend. Amplify what's already working. That's a different starting point than most packaging redesigns, which tend to begin somewhere between "freshen it up" and "make it feel more premium."

A focused brief produces better work than a vague one, and you can see it in the result. For any brand in the middle of a redesign, or just starting to think about one, the lesson isn't about budget or studio. It's about knowing what you're asking for before you ask. A brief that says "make our heritage impossible to ignore" gets you different packaging than one that says "update the look." Most of the time, the creative isn't the problem. The brief is.

Source: Fast Company

In most CPG companies, packaging decisions get made after the product decisions are made. The format, the material, the label claims, secondary and tertiary packaging: all of it gets settled after formulation is locked, the retailer is secured, and the launch date is on the calendar. And by then, the die is cast, literally.

That's not a small process problem. When packaging is treated as a downstream execution task (something operations handles after brand and product have already signed off), risk compounds invisibly. The timeline tightens. Material choices narrow. Compliance review happens under deadline pressure. The launch goes out with packaging designed to survive the window, not to win at shelf for three years.

The most important packaging decisions happen during the conceptual and early design phase, when formats, materials, claims, and regulatory requirements are first being defined. Getting packaging into the conversation at that stage means tradeoffs get made intentionally. Primary pack first, secondary pack later, tertiary as afterthought is a pipeline that works against you at scale. The decisions cascade, and locking the primary pack without thinking through the full system creates constraints you end up paying for downstream.

For large CPG companies, a bad packaging decision is expensive and annoying. For smaller brands, it can be brand-level damage. There's no reformulation budget, no deep SKU count to absorb a compliance problem or a shelf gap caused by a structure chosen under time pressure. The risk falls hardest on the brands with the least margin to absorb it.

A quick read on whether your org lives in this pattern: in your next product planning meeting, count how many agenda items come before anyone mentions packaging. If it comes after formulation, pricing, and channel, you're there. That order is worth changing before the next launch, not after.

Source: FoodNavigator-USA

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization published an analysis this month warning that recycled plastics approved for food contact can carry higher concentrations of metals, flame retardants, phthalates, and persistent organic pollutants than virgin plastics. Less than 10% of global plastic waste has been recycled so far, and as brands and regulators push to increase that number, the safety picture is getting more complicated. Bio-based alternatives aren't a clean escape either: plant-fiber packaging can introduce pesticide residues and heavy metals, and protein-based materials can allow allergens to migrate into food.

The findings are heading to the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the international food standards body run jointly by FAO and WHO, which is working toward harmonized global standards. Countries currently operate under different regulatory frameworks, and that inconsistency creates real exposure for brands selling across markets. On microplastics specifically, regulators still lack agreed detection methods, which means the risk is documented but the standard has not caught up yet.

If you are moving toward recycled content in your packaging to hit sustainability targets, the regulatory trajectory is toward stricter food contact requirements, not looser ones. Ask your supplier for current migration testing data for your specific material structure under your actual storage conditions. The compliance window when new standards arrive tends to be short, and getting ahead of the material question now is cheaper than a forced reformulation later.

Source: UN News / FAO

Genexa, the "clean medicine" OTC brand, just released a comprehensive packaging redesign built around a single functional problem: parents can't find the right medicine fast enough when it matters most. The brand moved away from its original character-driven visual system (Leo the Lion, Pei the Panda, Ginny the Giraffe) and replaced it with a bold symptom-based color system, designed so consumers can identify the correct product instantly in-store and at home, without reading the fine print. The redesign introduces a new brand icon called "The Spark" (representing the moment relief activates) and leads with front-of-pack claims, white space, and prominent clean-ingredient messaging: real blueberry, real agave, real chamomile, "0% artificial additives."

Most rebrands are aesthetics-first: new colors, updated logo, refreshed fonts. Genexa's is function-first, aesthetics second. The design question wasn't "how do we look more premium?" It was "how does a parent with a sick child find the right product in four seconds?" That's a different brief, and it produced a different result: a packaging system that does navigational work, not just brand work. For any brand in a category where in-home use or in-store findability matters (supplements, wellness, personal care, kids products), this is the right order of operations. Solve the functional problem the packaging needs to solve. Then make it beautiful. Genexa managed both.

Source: Healthcare Packaging