A totally new way to look at packaging! MEADOW CINO (Nick Paget)

https://meadow.global/

What if your lotion could deliver to you in an aluminum can? 

Why are aluminum cans such a sustainable option? 

Is the future of packaging refill? 

Chief Innovation Officer Nick Paget from Meadow Global! 

I first found this innovation online and then met them in Paris to get to actually see how it all works in person. It's an amazing innovation! 

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This podcast is an independent production and the podcast production is an original work of the author. All rights of ownership and reproduction are retained—copyright 2022.

Transcript

0:10

Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors. Today's guest is my friend Nick Paget, the co-founder and chief innovation Officer at Meadow. How are you, sir? Doing great. How are you? So good. I am really excited to have you on the show. I've been very, interested in what you are doing, at Meadow and your team has really taken off. I. By storm here, with this brand new innovation. It's a totally new way of looking at packaging, and I think it's going to replace a lot of things that are less sustainable. But first, before we get into any of that stuff, tell us about you. How did you get to be in the packaging industry? Sure. am, I studied industrial design, as my ba I think I didn't know what industrial design was until I went to college. I went to Pratt Institute in, in New York, back in, graduated in 2004. So I think I discovered it while I was there thinking, okay, this is, I like drawing pictures and I like making stuff. And I thought, Ooh, industrial design. If I had known what that was 10 years ago, I probably would've told you that's what I was gonna be doing. But there I was at Pratt, discovered industrial design. And, made it my career. originally from San Francisco, that's where I moved back to and started my career there. And I've been doing industrial design ever since. And of course, one thing that sort of is all part of every project, even though they're very different is packaging. So I suppose packaging has been. Been exclusively a packaging designer as such, but, packaging is really there with most of the projects I've worked on in my career. So here I am still doing it, but on a whole nother level. It is a new level. This is a brand new innovation and I'm really excited to show the audience what it is. When we met in Paris, in January, or, yeah, January for Paris Packaging Week, you guys handed me this kit and it's, it shows, what Meadow is and how it works. But I wanted to give you this opportunity to tell the world. What is Meadow? How does it work? And, how did the idea for it come to be? So the Meadow is based in Stockholm, Sweden, and it was founded by, by myself and, my co-founders, Peter and Victor. And, we met in Stockholm. Victor comes from a media background. Peter comes from, from a startup background. Software, but as well as other entrepreneurial pursuits. And we all met together with on a shared mission to do something about the waste crisis. and obviously, with my industrial design background, we figured out pretty quickly that, we are all trying to address the same problem, but using, different ways of approaching it. Mine coming from industrial design and packaging and. obviously, Peter and Victor coming at it, commercially and with a startup and fundraising background. So that was really how the three of us came together to form Meadow, which was now five years ago. and, but we like to, remind ourselves and really remind everybody that meadows here to work with existing supply chains, work with existing brands, to try to make it as easy as possible to adopt. changing a packaging format, as is, is tricky, especially when it comes to changing supply chains, changing consumer behavior. So we're really here to, work with a huge amount of, of companies and partners. We called that building the Meadow. and we've done that, for the last five years. And, and now we're here to release Meadow Kapsul , which is our first, which is our first technology that we're here to roll out, to brands and to the market. Exciting. It really is, and it's a complete new innovation. can you show us how it works? Sure. How does this system replace, conventional packaging? Sure. we wanted to identify what we think is the most recyclable and most sustainable packaging out there, which is the beverage can and, We'd love to hear what you said, which is we've invented a whole new type of packaging. But we also like to say that we're also using one of the most familiar types of packaging out there. it's been around for, a really long time. People know what it is, know what to do with it. People know how to make it, and most importantly, they know what to do with it when they're finished using it, which is recycle it. and that's the beverage can. there's 400 over 400 billion produced a year. they're made out of aluminum. 75% of all the aluminum ever produced is still in circulation today, and the recycling rates of the beverage can, are extremely high. in Sweden where we're based, they're over 90%. That's the same for countries like Brazil, Switzerland, and globally those are above 75%. So that's why we really love the beverage can and also we didn't have to invent it. we've changed the, the end of the camp. which you're familiar with is having a pull tab. And, we have used the same shell platform, but we've made a new end, which doesn't have a pull tab. and that is together with the canned body. What creates the Meadow Kapsul and the way you open it, instead of using your fingernail is via a dispenser. And you just showed, on camera, a company that, launched the product. so there they showed you a. You showed us rather a, a version of the capsule dispenser, there in the, with their take on the, or their brand identity on the cam. And, the way you opened it is with a Yeah. Yeah. They did a great job. We're very happy with that. one of the fun things about cans, thanks to the Microbrewing world is all the stuff that can happen with digital printing and, the can makers with their inline printing. When it comes to textures, metallics, matte, and gloss. So I think it's, it's very fun when the brands get ahold of it just to see what they're able to do. especially with taking a new category into a beverage packaging, there's always some pretty unique outcomes. That's a great point. Yeah, that's, there's so many ways to decorate a can. I think this, like you said, is digital printing. it's got some really neat texture to it. It's beautiful. and somebody would look at that and say, oh, is that a beverage? And then they would look closer and say, oh wait, this is lotion. And then they would see the end and say, oh, that's obviously not a beverage.'cause that's an end I haven't seen before. and then that, that goes along with the other component. So this is considered the Kapsul . Is that right? The Meadow Kapsul that's right. And then this is the, dispensing unit. Correct. So you slide the Kapsul into the base. That's right. and then you put this end on the top, which will effectively open the lid. And you'll hear that pop or snap, sound. And then you'll put in your dispensing end, whether it's a pore top or a pump. yep. And then this is, this system is to be used in perpetuity, which is exciting. and some. Then just some brands call it the, oh, sorry to interrupt you. Yeah. some brands call it the keeper. Some brands call it the Forever bottle. and I think that we love all those terms because that is exactly the point is that you recycle the capsule, which by the way, the can industry. It's very efficient from a production point of view, but also from a recycling point of view. And that will be back on the shelf on average, usually within about 60 days. That's how efficient the recycling infrastructure is. So you put it in the keeper. I can actually take you through one here. I don't know if we'll pick up. Yeah, let's do it. But if you'd like. So we've got the, the capsule goes inside this dispenser, Chris, to open. We have a clear one here 'cause it helps demonstrate what's happening. there's also a seal you can see inside, which is this yellow part. Let's see if we can pick up the sound.'cause that's one of the, the most fun parts of the user experience. So I don't know if that picked up on the mic, but what's happened now is the capsules opened and then we take, in this case a pump could be a spray top for, sprayed products. This is a pump top. Put it on the top and then pump out the contents. When you're finished, take this off. It has water in it for so we don't have to keep pouring out soap. And then you put that in the recycling when you're finished and reload it. what we hear that's really well received about that is that, there's no decanting needed. so people are able to buy a dispenser that they really like the look of'cause it fits well into their home. They're able to, refill it with we call it mess free refill. So you put it in the cartridge, you open it up, and you mentioned the sound, which is really fun. everyone's really familiar with this sound that beverages made, and that's been really well received in this new category. and I, a lot of it is down to the fact that it sounds like the product's being activated. The first thing that the consumers experience is the aroma of the product, which is really key in, in this new category, and cans are really great at that, right? cans are really great at retaining, smell. They're really good at keeping UV light out. they're designed to keep freshness in. So that's been something that, that's really fun about the user experience, which we spend a lot of time on. whether it's the smell or whether it's the sound. those are all elements, that we, we invite the brands to really, spend time thinking about. Of course, they can also change the shape, look and feel. So you showed, the unique product, which is very similar to the one I have in front of me. The idea for the Meadow Capsule is that a brand will take on not just the graphics or the color, but take on the shape and even the usability of the products. I was blown away in Paris by the different options that you have available already. this one of course is, Ex used for use with lotion, but that you had all kinds of different products. Can you talk us through some of that, some of those options? So this, I'm thinking lotion, soap, what other kinds of things are really, adapting this, product? So the nice thing about cans is we know they come in variety of sizes. our launch category is the SLE format. I've got one here. I'm actually drinking a can of water here as well. But, they're, this is the sleep format and then the standard format is what we might traditionally know of as a can, or a beer can. and within those two diameters you have a few different, heights that go from around 250 ml to up around 500 and different can sizes allow for different content types. Where we've spent most of our time testing is in the shower environment and we've done really, a year, of, many years of testing, but it probably adds up to about a year of testing. Consumers in their showers, doing prolonged testing. and that means that we know a lot about body wash, conditioner, shampoos. where we are seeing a lot of opportunities as well are things like surface cleaners and cleaning products. You mentioned lotions, but it could also be, things like supplements that don't need to be pumped out, pills, dry foods. So these are areas where, we are always exploring and, as I said in the beginning, we're very interested in seeing what, the market, wants to use this for, because that's. The best ideas come from, but that's an example of some of the categories that, we think there's a lot of opportunities in. also hotel and hospitality. So we've talked about how this might be used in people's homes, but, from a hotel or from a, hospitality, airports, gym's, point of view. There's some really neat, advantages to this system, in terms of, cleanliness and tamper proofness, as well as, quick change over time. Yeah, I love it. what a cool idea. What an innovation. so exciting. So where I live in the US in Oregon, we were the first state to have a 10 cent deposit on our cans, which has more than doubled our recycling rates of aluminum cans and bottles, and other things that have a deposit. Is it possible to add, deposit return system to the meadow? capsules. It is a really good question, and we do a lot of, work in this space and the regulations probably change state to state and also country to country. So we're based in Sweden, which has one. governing body for the deposit return system. I'm in the UK today, has a different one. Germany, and then in the US we've got different state to state. So that's something, we really hope will happen because as you've said, there's such proven benefits to having deposit returns. there's no technical reason why the can, can't go back into the deposit return system. It's probably just gonna be down to the regulations of that, jurisdiction. and as I said, they may deposit, they may change state to state. One of the benefits we know about, at least in, in Europe, is that, with say plastic bottles, You wouldn't be able to put a shampoo bottle from what we understand into a deposit return because you might contaminate the beverage packaging that's in there. Because beverage cans are melted before they're turned back into coils and turned back into cans. You have a default, sterilization, operation, I suppose you could say, but you're melting it down into a raw material and forming a can again. So whether it gets turned again into a, a beverage or a can of shampoo, in our case, it won't make a difference. It seems that this format, could potentially allow for those types of categories, soaps, cleaning products, et cetera, into a deposit return system, which isn't currently available, as far as we know with, with the plastics. So we'll see again how it happens and how it's rolled out state to state, country to country. But we think that there's pretty good reason for it, and we definitely wanna see that happen. I think it would be incredible to add it. I agree with you. That would be really impressive and would help, push it through the recycling system. I think it might be as simple as just printing on the end here. which states have, which deposits, just like, other us Cans do. exactly. And I hope someday, crossing my fingers, that will have a federal deposit system that will encompass all US states and maybe even Canada and Mexico as well for aluminum cans. it just, it's time. We need to update, upgrade to that. Fully agree. I think I've seen data that shows the states that do, or you just mentioned Oregon, right? The states that don't, and then they implement it and you go some sort of 45% recycling all the way up to sort of 80%. Almost overnight. so absolutely. I think, the, I'm from California and I think we call it the 10 State code that That you mentioned, which is printed. So there's no, technical reason why that can't be there. our, one of our partners, DRT, who invented the ring pool, they are, working on making sure that we have enough space for the 10 states, so it's ready for the marking. I suppose you're effectively printing money, so there's a lot of laws around when you can and can't put it on. but in terms of it, I would say it's 10 state ready, put it that way. In terms of the end, and as you say, it's, there's plenty of space that we've left for that, when it comes and hopefully one day it's got the federal marketing, which you mentioned, which I think we should make happen. I agree. I'd like to switch gears a little bit and look at this from the perspective of the consumer. can you tell us a little bit about some of the feedback you've been getting from consumers of this new system? Yeah. As I said, we do a lot of, consumer testing that's really, a key, A key ethos of us at Meadow. we wanna work a lot of brands. We wanna work with their supply chains, but at the end of the day, when it comes to user experience, we go straight to the consumers. And we've been testing from when these were three e printed prototypes, almost with duct tape, not quite in, in people's homes. And we were really curious to know just how do people feel about having, a Coke can full of shampoo in their shower. maybe that just won't fly. and that's the engagement with the consumers. Before, this was before meta capsule was even, launched, was really how, it got designed. And some of the features, I'll go through a little to answer your question, that we did through working with them. were things like removing of the pull tab, which makes it really wipeable and clean. I had this image of a, I don't know why, but I was thinking, bright red nail polish, and then cracking open a very expensive shampoo. It just didn't feel right. in terms of, is that the kind of. behavior you want to preserve from the beverage. Can, we want keep the supply chain efficiencies and the efficiencies we don't need. The cracking open of a beer when it comes to shampoo. So that was one that we designed out, with the help of DRT. So it becomes very wipeable. There's no hidden surfaces under the pool tab, so it becomes more bathroom ready. The other thing is it's inherently, safe when it comes to, if you're in a store, you can't twist off the top and smell it. these are things which, you know, maybe that's a shortcoming for some people, but it's a benefit, maybe especially in post COVID times too, in terms of something being really fresh. the other thing that we did, because we focus a lot on, inclusive design as well, is making sure that this is something that can be, operated by as many people as possible. One of the first pieces of research we did was figure out the grip strength of sort of an 80-year-old female. Are they even gonna be able to open this thing? And we figured out that, we ended up having, cutting in half the force requirements of someone with that level of grip strength. And as one of our technical leads say, you can do this in the dark and you can put it in, crack it open and put the tube in. Whereas sometimes the tip ending on dexterity decanting isn't, isn't always an option. and we wanted to make sure no one was excluded from, From refill, right? so that's been something we've done a lot. another one is the addition of the, what we call the daisy top, which is this corrugated feature on the top. Because the beverage can is so familiar, we wanted to put the challenge to ourselves of, let's make sure people know it's a can, but they know it's not a beverage. And the first thing we did was take away the pull tab that helps. But if the can in the open state, that could forgiv perhaps be mistaken as a beverage. And what happens now if a child or a non, language speaker of what's printed on the can sees it, there's safety concerns. What happens if a visually impaired person comes across it? Well, that's why we also have the daisy top feature, which really moves it one step further away from, from being a beverage. Aperture in the middle. and this shape also, it doesn't really invite you to put your lips on it. So these are all sort of conscious decisions we did to, so to maintain the fact that it's a can because really world over people know what to do is a can. I always like to say, you don't need to look for a triangle on the bottom of a can to see if it's recyclable. So how did we preserve that, that, those elements of the beverage can, but make sure that it's not a beverage so that you can distinguish easily. So those are some of the design choices that may we made along with consumers, a lot also related to the dispenser. we know that it's very important to people that something looks good in their home. people who are very house proud or you hear the term counter worthy design. Those are things that make us feel great, or we hear that, I, with a say a surface cleaner, I don't have to put it under the sink 'cause it looks so great. So those are very welcome feedback from consumers. and then I think you mentioned at the beginning, I've said it once and I'll say it again. The thing that I think people get most excited about is that opening crack. we've heard people call it. Opening a can of tennis balls or cre being the first open peel away the coffee, foil and getting that burst of aroma. So I think that's a, one of the elements that, that we're most proud of in terms of the unique user experience. the last one, we'll mention is also related to the sound. We actually had a. A master's student, an engineering master's student who wrote his thesis on the acoustic properties of the, the dispenser. So we know a lot about the sound and we like to, invite brands to play with it because the sound of opening a product, is really, is key to the identity of the content as well. So I agree. Those are some of the high. That's great. one last technical question. The, the end, does it disappear into the product or does it just flap down and stay on the can? the circle in the middle? Yeah. Can you show us that? We call, we call it, we call it the tab. And I think you can see it here, you can see it's retained right there. So that is, that will always be retained and it just gets pushed down a little bit like a one a beverage can would see, that's great news because then there's no, concern of that getting lost into the product or falling out or, not that I think that would happen, but that, that eliminates another potential issue. Well done. No, it's a great question and I can say it wasn't easy. I bet. But, read it to, to DRT, for help with that. Great. Well, where, how do we get in touch with you? Where do we buy these things? tell us more. I. Sure. So we have, we have, we're going to market, this year. We've launched, you showed up, one of the launch products uni, which of course you, you should contact them to, to buy that product. As you see brands roll it out, they're gonna be the ones, selling it. we're gonna see products on the market, here in the uk, within the next three or four months, which we're really excited about, in retail. at your high street retailers, that's where you buy those products. for brands, that, that want to, please contact, look for us. And, we have a, strategic partnership with Ball, who's the largest can maker in the world. so you may see us at trade shows around the world. we, as we were in Paris, where we saw you, Corey, in the ball packaging booth. and they will, be providing the ends. and, I think they will also. I'm trying to think, Corey, who I need to say in terms of, getting contact there. yeah, maybe the best is, probably just going through us, but I'm wondering if we have to, give a contact there. Yeah. We can add in links to the bottom so people listen. Yeah. Can just scroll up and that, that's a great idea. Click on those links, so No, no worries. So Nick, earlier you mentioned, the potential of launching a portal where people can, log on and find suppliers in their areas for all of these things. Tell us more about that. along with launching the capsule this year we'll be launching a portal. it is an online resource so that brands customers can learn more about the product. Brands who are interested can learn more about the product. fillers and co-packers, can learn more about the product. So that's gonna be launching also in the next, in the next couple of months. And, that will, highlight, where you can buy the ends fillers, in your area. And also, people to help you design and make, dispensers, that we showed here. So any resource that a brand might need, to understand more about the technology, the sustainability metrics, some of the user benefits that we talked a little bit about today will be available there as well. Best way to get there is, also through Meadow Global. Great. Thank you, sir. Really appreciate your time and your wisdom. That was fun. Thanks so much and hope to see you at the, next trade show soon. Thanks, Nick. Bye bye-Bye.