Would you eat your water bottle if that would save the planet?.
With an edible water bottler, for instance, consumers can experience the immediate satisfaction of doing their part to reduce waste – a step beyond tossing recyclables into a bin and hoping they end up where they are supposed to.
“If you buy a plastic bottle that is made of 30 percent less plastic, you really don’t experience your contribution to a greener society, whereas if you ‘eat’ your water bottle, you’re actually reminding yourself and consciously thinking of this step that you’re taking to be sustainable, to be greener, and that could have a more positive impact on the consumer.” And without the need to open something or throw the container away after consumption edible packaging also gains another advantage: convenience.
In some cases, edible food wrappings have been so accepted by mainstream consumers no one ever gives them a second thought, such as the ubiquitous ice cream cone or a popular Japanese candy that comes wrapped in edible rice paper.
“I mean there has always been this notion of … something around the [food] product that is edible,” says Bernd Schmitt, a marketing professor at Columbia Business School in New York City.
However, Elizabeth Minton, an expert in pro-social marketing from the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyo., says sustainable innovations like edible water bottles could easily build up following – if consumers are given a chance to try it out at events like athletic events or summer concerts.
“With a lot of these really new products, if you can get it involved in some kind of event-based marketing that is already using your product, you can get it to big audience,” says Ms. Minton.
Follow Stories Like This Sign Up Considering the mental barriers to accepting a new product like Ooho, Coary says these products with edible food packaging will probably only appeal to a small fragment of consumers who are "trying to lessen their impact on the earth when it comes to waste."
"I do see growing steam in these companies increasing in revenue and having growth in the next few years," he says.
"But would I see this is kind of overtaking our traditional water bottle in the next 10 years?