Hot drinks-to-go need better packaging: cup holder convenience plus consumer safety equal effective hot drinks packaging - Consumer Corner - Brief Article

If Campbell can expand its market by packaging soup in microwavable soup cups, can Nestle and Starbucks do likewise with coffee cups? In a world where dividing lines between formats and categories are rapidly disappearing consumers need packaging that performs, whatever its source.

Today, packaging for juices, soft drinks, and even milk have become more consumer friendly, hand-friendly, car friendly and resealable. Consumers can buy super-friendly single-serve packages of chilled coffees and teas but those who want it hot are stuck with too-hot-to-handle cups with ill-fitting lids.

The consumer importance of the auto cup holder as a food and beverage venue is widely recognized by the convenience store industry and by many of its key suppliers. Frito-Lay is even marketing fun-to-go Frito and Dorito snacks in containers that are designed to fit in auto cup holders.

While almost all other on-the-go packaging has been getting better and better, hot beverage cups continue to splash, spill and use ill-fitting sleeves to protect heat-sensitive hands. Up until now, except for burn lawsuits, consumers have suffered in silence.

Now, consumers who have come to expect packaging to respond to their needs have begun to speak up and ask for help. They want hot coffee that's easier to carry along, easier to hold and less likely to splash, spill, scald or stain at the next bump in the road.

Drinking while driving (or walking or just sitting in traffic) has been growing steadily for years (even as drinking beer while driving, especially in Texas, has thankfully all but disappeared). Hot coffee sales have grown in spite of packaging that is beset with problems, including large-settlement lawsuits.

Some readers will remember the controversy over McDonald's coffee lawsuit 10 years ago. Package sufficiency or performance wasn't cited as an issue in that case. All the attention was focused on coffee temperature. In today's world, the issues in such cases would probably include packaging because of the blurring of foodservice and retail formats and the high awareness of packaging that goes anywhere and everywhere.

CONVENIENT HOT DRINKS

Millions of consumers do buy and drink take-out coffee in spite of the hazards involved. Some of these consumers actually enjoy the spill-risk as a form of living on the edge, but many others are too neat or too careful to take the real risk involved. The fact that you may not have heard complaints is probably attributable to two things:

1. Consumers don't know that a better one-way container is possible for hot drinks. Their experience leads them to believe that cold drinks come in convenience packages and hot drinks just don't.

2. At most convenience stores and some restaurants, consumers do have the option of purchasing a refillable store-promotion mug, which advertises the store and/or brand and which can be refilled at a lower price than the disposables. Many of these mugs have caps that work almost as well as twist-offs. The trouble with these refillables is that they cost extra (from $1 to $3) and have to be washed between uses.

I hope this call for help is enough to spur some Food & Drug Packaging readers to wake up and smell the opportunity.

Mona Doyle is the CEO of The Consumer Network Inc., an organization that regularly takes the pulse of consumers on packaging issues. She publishes The Shopper Report newsletter. Contact her at 2401 Pennsylvania Ave,, Suite 2A4, Philadelphia, PA 19130 Phone: 800-291-0100; E-mail: Mona@MonaDoyle.com

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