OUGD601 - CoP Practical - Practical Ideas Critique

I had a critique on my ideas so far for my CoP practical and found it really helpful to realise what I needed to do. I explained my essay direction and how I wanted to focus on my findings about convenience food and how the packaging is immediately disposed of after being used.

I sketched up some ideas for my sandwich boxes and also some brand names for the possible lunch brand. I wanted to create quite a novelty brand which promotes awareness for sustainability with lots of information within the packaging. It's really to promote the idea of thinking about what happens to your packaging when you throw it away.

When I explained all of these there were some really good suggestions immediately. It was mentioned that because of the seeded paper and the novelty of it I would need to think about whether the product could be commercially viable and if so where would the sandwiches be sold. Based on the seeded paper materials that I'm planning to use I think that the sandwich would be quite a high ended brand especially considering the novelty and eco-conscious side to it.

Additionally, it was suggested that I could consider thinking about food waste as well as packaging waste. My peer told me that there is lots of waste in the sandwich industry through bread ends alone so I could consider using this within my sandwiches to make them more eco-friendly.

I was also told to consider the target audience of the sandwiches and who they would appeal to. An interesting suggestion was to aim it at parents and their children, to do an exciting activity to grow their own plants. I think this definitely suits the novelty aspect of it and it would make more sense to have a specific audience like this.

Yet another suggestion was to create a set of sorts to grow the plant so have one packaging for the seeds, one for the fertiliser and one for the pot. So I could create a range of 3 lunch products - two sandwiches and a salad pot. I really like this idea as I think that it suits the new target audience that was suggested as well as creating a cohesive set. However the question is would this be realistic to produce? Again I need to think whether I want to create this as a theoretical product as awareness for a campaign or as a more commercially viable product (which may lessen the sustainability of the product due to its mass production.)