A History of Packaging (Out of the Box #4)

Welcome back to Out of the Box. This is an exploration of what surrounds our food, that is, the containers and packaging that it enters our lives in. In this series I've been talking to people who have taken an interesting and innovative approach to packaging what they cook and produce, and exploring some of the broader context around the history of particular food packaging, as well as obviously waste and the impact that packaging has on our environment. While I've been making this project, I really wanted to find an archive of food packaging in the UK, and initially I couldn't, but then by chance I found out that the Museum of Brands in West London has currently has a display called Reuse, Refill, Rethink, all about how different brands over time have approached reusable packaging. It's in collaboration with the University of Sheffield and their research project Many Happy Returns, which aim to enable reusable packaging systems that have the potential to reduce the environmental impact of single use plastic packaging by keeping packaging material in circulation for as long as possible. What I didn't realise is that actually the entire museum is really, really relevant to this conversation and I had completely underestimated that connection. I got in touch with the Museum of Brands and the curator Alice Kain very kindly agreed to show me round.