Why retailers reject packs

After 20+ years in branding and packaging design, I've seen plenty of great-looking packs run into trouble, even after the buyer has said yes. And more often than not, it's not because of the design.

Brand owners and marketers usually focus on how the pack looks, how many claims they can fit on and how well it stands out against competitors. All very important, but they're only part of the job. A pack also has to meet regulatory requirements, work within the limits of print and production, and pass the technical standards Coles and Woolworths require.

That's where things can come unstuck. Creating a visually amazing design and getting a pack through production and onto the shelf are very different skills.

Often the brand manager assumes the agency has compliance covered, and the agency assumes the client's regulatory person does, so nobody really takes ownership until the retailer receives it.

There are three areas I think matter most.

The shelf: Something that looks amazing in a presentation doesn't necessarily work a metre away, under supermarket lighting, next to as many as ten competitors on crammed shelves, with dark shadows that often cover the brand name. Shoppers decide in seconds, seeing colour, shape and images first. A buyer might range the product, but if shoppers can't tell what it is, they walk straight past it, and the rejection turns up at the next range review.

The press: Colours that look great on screen rarely print the same way, especially on off-white board. Fine type reversed out of a dark colour or image can fill in and disappear on flexo, and foils look amazing but can make text hard to read. Even leaving a clear area for the date code gets overlooked, and there's nothing worse than having to hunt for it.

The mandatories: These always seem to go on last, in whatever space is left. Brand owners expect the agency to set the pack up to comply with the Food Standards Code: the lot code, the supplier's address, the nutrition information panel, the ingredients list and allergens. Since February 2024, allergens must be in bold in the ingredients list, with a separate bold “Contains” statement directly next to it. The net quantity on the front needs to be at least 2 mm to 4.8 mm high, depending on pack size. Present isn't the same as compliant.

Here's the part many brands don't realise. The buyer only really judges the first of these. The other two are checked by the retailer's compliance team and distribution centres, who read the printed pack against the Code and trade measurement law, and check that every carton scans.

Barcodes are one of the most common problems I come across: a truncated barcode, one supplied as a JPG or squeezed or rotated to fit the layout, a graphic creeping into the clear space around it, or a retail barcode on the carton instead of an ITF-14. Woolworths requires a verification report for every carton code.

The barcode issue I still think about happened when I was working at a large design agency. One of the more senior designers had used a barcode from an older job as a placeholder. It was clearly marked “Positional Only”, but it somehow made it all the way to print. It scanned perfectly, just as a completely different product, and nobody noticed until it was on the shelf. Every pack had to be pulled and thrown away, the lawyers were called in, and the bill ran to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Every one of these issues can be checked before a pack goes anywhere near a press. None of them is a creative decision, but all of them end up being the designer's problem. So my advice to brand owners and managers is simple: work with a packaging specialist who understands shopper behaviour, print and compliance.

Regulations keep changing, so next time you update your packs, leave room on the front for the Health Star Rating, because FSANZ is weighing a proposal to make it mandatory.

The front of the pack is usually the easy part.