The packaging-free product market: A renewal of practices

In France, the market on which this chapter focuses, the sales outlets for packaging-free products are multiplying, the range of products sold without packaging is growing, producers are demonstrating a great capacity for innovation and supply chains are being organized. Packaging has become a commercial interface that, like the brand and its advertising, acts as an intermediary between the consumer and the product. The products are acquired for their content, but also because of the container and its brand. The growth of the power of packaging-free consumption has occured in tandem with increasing media coverage of the environmental and health impact of packaging, particularly plastics. Packaging-free consumption is currently primarily the preserve of organic stores, but large and medium-sized stores, which are increasingly interested in the market, account for 40% of sales. Faced with packaging-free products that can be considered new Objets comestibles non identifies , consumers must relearn the rules of consumption.