Hello! I’m Alessandra, The Creative Pack’s one and only Intern Abroad. After a wonderful summer interning with TCP in our home offices in Manhattan Beach, California, I left for study abroad in the city across the pond, London! While I cannot resume intern duties such as checking design files or retouching images, I can still update social media, write copy for design contests, and do packaging research. In this blog I hope to display and discuss the interesting packaging I find in the UK and other European countries. (With a few highlights about my adventures!) So without further adieu, my first blog post! 

It has been exactly 2 weeks since I arrived here in London yet I can honestly say it feels like 4. This city is so fast paced, I feel like I am going to the market every other day to buy groceries that disappear quickly in my flat’s little kitchenette. The trend for grocery shopping is thus: buy what you can comfortably carry home and that should last about a half a week. So because of the need for easy transportation, many products have smaller portion and packaging sizes. These stores make everything in the US look huge; from our ginormous bags of crisps to our Costco sized cereal boxes. Here, bigger is NOT better and certainly impedes the ability to take your goods home. Shops like Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose, and The Food Co-Operative are all competing to be the best and cheapest local market in your area.

As for packaging design, clarity reigns in private label branding. It is appealing to the customers and being ever so less expensive than the competitors (certainly on my budget these days). Here is an example of some finely packaged Waitrose Salami. It has a plastic peel-away lid and a window showing the product. Truthfully the design does make me want to buy it, but also because it was £1.40. 

Another store that has a very defined private label is the London abundant Pret A Manger. I pretty much can’t go 2 blocks without a Pret nearby. It is more of a coffee shop/to-go sandwiches hybrid, preaching organic and fresh foods to its many customers. It mostly features private label products and various canned and bottled drinks. Their packaging design is mostly small, lightly embellished stickers on their sandwiches and minimalistic features on other products.

I have noticed that all of the grocery stores with private label branding have packaging that does look quite similar. I will have to look into that more deeply in the next few weeks.

Cheerio!
Alessandra