‘When consumer behaviour changes as rapidly as it has during the Covid-19 outbreak in 2020, it’s important that food retailers react quickly too. Speeding up the development of a food delivery tamper seal, without losing sight of its efficacy, meant building vital trust in food safety to deliver additional revenue whilst outlets were forced to close.’
Takeaway food tamper seals win consumer trust
The Customer
Our customer is a food retailer offering food-on-the-go through over 2000 outlets across the UK.
They pride themselves on being highly innovative and constantly adapting. They offer consumers new and exciting choices of freshly prepared food and drinks at convenient outlets.
Since our customer relies heavily on retail footfall, they were severely hit when branches were forced to close in March 2020 due to Covid-19. Even as they prepared to open their retail outlets for takeaway business in June 2020, they were invigorating their growing home delivery business to take account of changing consumer eating habits.
The Customer’s Challenge
Before Coronavirus hit the UK, our customer was experimenting with a food delivery partner, ensuring that the operational process, including food tamper seals, worked efficiently. In March 2020 that trial became urgent as consumer demand for takeaway food options rose.
Early in the trial our customer received feedback from consumers some of whom said that takeaway orders seemed to be incomplete and some packages had broken, or the tamper evident seal was missing. On closer inspection, it was discovered that delivery drivers were sometimes opening takeaway packages and removing items; specifically drink containers, which could spill in the delivery vehicle. Since drivers were opening and repacking the delivery bags, customer perceived that the food order had been tampered with.
Clearly there was room to improve the takeaway packaging and, since consumer desire for food safety is at an all-time high, the performance of the takeaway food tamper seals formed an integral part of the process to build consumer trust.
Our Approach
The Piroto team has many years of experience in creating tamper evident labels for both pharmaceutical packaging and for the food industry. We worked closely with the customer to fully understand the food delivery process, right from the store through delivery to the consumer.
Once fully versed in our customer’s needs, the Piroto technical team trialled three different adhesive label materials to test which would work the best with the takeaway bag material. In addition, they explored the best label presentation method that would make easy work of applying the tamper seals in-store.
What we delivered
The Piroto technical team specified a material with a fast-drying, aggressive adhesive. This means that the tamper evident feature of the seal acted very quickly; within 5 minutes of the takeaway bag being sealed. The aggressive adhesive works by tearing the fibres of the packaging if the label is removed; thus making it evident that the container has been tampered with.
The tamper seals were presented on small rolls making them easy for staff in the outlet to attach quickly and easily. In addition, we advised on label application techniques to make it easier for staff to apply effectively in a fast moving environment.
The impact on the customer’s business
With technical knowledge of tamper evident seals, the Piroto team was able to provide a solution to meet the end user’s needs quickly. Specific benefits to the customer include:
- food delivery tamper seals that are customised to meet the operational needs exactly, including roll presentation for efficient application by staff in store
- a tamper seal that consumers would trust, thus improving repeat orders and helping to build takeaway business at a critical time
- the most effective tamper seal, based specifically on the packaging materials used, and performance tested by our technical team
- advice on how to apply the tamper label effectively.