ovenstory – Sustainable pizza packaging

BRIEF

Now Cloud kitchens are sprouting all over India which has also increased the demand for packaging for food delivery. The major challenge with this model is the restaurant has to build the brand without a physical store which gives interesting opportunities for packaging to innovate. With interesting opportunities come challenges of transit, packaging handling, and designing delightful experiences for consumers

Desworks collaborated with Ovenstory(Rebel Foods) to design a pizza box of 11”. The design should help in delivering pizza through rough packaging handling and transit conditions and bring in experience for customers..

KEY CHALLENGES

To restrict the vertical, horizontal, and rotational movement of pizza

To convert packaging into serving trays

To limit the cost of packaging to less than Rs 12

To keep the formation of the box less than 30 seconds

DESIGN

Their existing pizza box is octagonal and provides a close-fitting to pizza. After multiple experiments and brainstorming, we considered taking advantage of their existing octagonal box and adding an insert to protect the pizza rather than developing an entirely new design. The octagonal shape helps in restricting the lateral movement of pizza inside the packaging. So our design direction was to develop an external tray that helps in restricting pizza’s vertical movement and that also converts into a serving tray. This direction also helped Ovenstory to continue its existing operations and packaging inventory.

WORKING PRINCIPLE

We leveraged the physical properties of pizza during its transition period from hot to cold. We targeted the hottest & soft part and made it sit at the bottom of the pizza box and raise the height of the crust area. While the pizza is cooling down it sets itself like a Pringle formed shape on the tray and restricts any type of rotational and vertical movement.

The flanges of the tray get locked to the outer box walls. When pizza is placed over the edges of the tray due to friction between the tray and the crust of the pizza it does not allow it to move from its location. Hence this ensures overall restriction in the movement of pizza in the box.

Perforations are provided for each slice that helps consumers to pick up a slice with help of the tray without getting their hands messy. These perforations also act as indicators to the chef while slicing pizza and help in slicing pizza into equal parts. The division or edges of the tray depends upon the number of slices a company wants of pizza. The tray serves both purposes of restricting the pizza movement and also converts into a serving dish.