Single-serve drink mixes and individually wrapped foods are a boon for landfill enthusiasts. Dissolvable-packaging maker MonoSol has a fix. Can you stomach it?
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Illustration by Alconic
"You promise this won't kill me?"
I'm eyeing the clear packet of hot chocolate--marked confidential & proprietary--I just dropped into a mug of steaming water. As I stir, bits of the plasticlike wrapper float to the top. The cocoa creeps out in waves. And then, in an instant, the remnants of the casing simply . . . disappear.
"It's safe," assures the man to my side, who's holding a cup of the same. "Go ahead, try it."
"You first," I reply. We both chuckle--and take a sip.
Soon we may all be drinking what CEO P. Scott Bening and his materials-science shop MonoSol are serving. The company's water-soluble wrappers can be found encasing everything from clothing to pesticides to detergent, such as the Tide Pods Procter & Gamble will launch in the U.S. this month with a $150 million marketing push. "Our films are already in your laundry room and kitchen," says Bening, between drinks. Now he wants to bring them to your mouth.
Marketing ChallengeBranding experts Karin Hibma and Michael Cronan suggest ways to convince a country it's okay to "eat plastic."
Invoke nature "Fruit has packaging in the form of skin, and we don't think twice about eating it," says Hibma. "MonoSol should emphasize that in its marketing."
Add nutrients "Edible casing that's merely neutral is bad," says Cronan. "Even if MonoSol just adds a few electrolytes, the film will be an easier sell."
Make it relatable "Picture a TV ad showing a food wrapper that blows away from a dump, tumbles across fields, and winds up in your hand," says Cronan. "If this packaging eliminates that waste, it's a powerful message."
Deep within its two northwest Indiana labs, MonoSol has been developing edible films that are soluble, biodegradable, even flavorable. "A blow-up view would kind of look like a brick of Ramen noodles," says Jon Gallagher, MonoSol's new product development manager. "Once there's water penetration, the molecular bonds loosen up." Until that point, the material is strong enough to serve as packaging for food. It's a wrapper until it isn't.
MonoSol just started shopping the tech to major food brands, so it's at least a year or two away from appearing on shelves. The company's earnings topped $100 million last year, but Bening believes its food business could be massive: "If we get our films in just 10% of the [$22 billion] instant-coffee market, or in the oatmeal or hot-chocolate markets, we could more than triple the size of our business." Just as significant is what MonoSol would be reducing. There are roughly 76 tons of packaging waste added to U.S. landfills each year. Boosting the bottom line is great, but Bening is equally focused on fundamentally changing the way we consume food and drink. Wrappers that dissolve during prep wouldn't end up in dumps--they would end up in your meal. Persuading you to put them there is what will require the real science.
Products In The Pipeline
From top to bottom: Hot chocolate, drink stick, and oatmeal. | Photo by Thomas Liggett IN DEVELOPMENT
It won't be long before these staples are making the people around you uneasy.
Coffee/Hot Chocolate Packets could be cream- or marshmallow-flavored and would eliminate the single-serve packaging everyone tears and tosses.
Spice Strips A mix of spices that dissolves on meat while it cooks. Guaranteed consistency for chefs who have to ensure meals always taste the same.
Drink Sticks The narrow pouch slides easily into water bottles. No more fumbling with a clumsy scoop when making powdered drinks.
Oatmeal Instead of having preflavored oatmeal, the package would add the brown sugar, maple syrup, or apples-and-cinnamon tinge.
IN THEORY
These don't yet exist, but MonoSol is mulling.
Military Meals Portable grub takes up valuable travel-bag space and can leave a garbage trail for enemies.
Water-Purification Film Who wants to wait for water to boil? Purifying films could provide clean water quicker.
Frozen Lasagna Heat-susceptible materials could mean that when cooked in a 350- degree oven, a film separating the sauce from the pasta would dissolve after 20 minutes, the film keeping the cheese off the sauce would dissolve 10 minutes later, and the film holding any toppings would dissolve 5 minutes after that. A perfectly cooked dish, every time.
MonoSol laundry-detergent pod Field Test "People think water soluble means 'not strong,'" says Tom Yogan, MonoSol's technical director. "That's not the case." To verify his claim, we subjected a bucket of MonoSol's laundry-detergent pods to a lazy eight-minute physical.
DURABILITY
WHAT Drop pods from increasing heights.
WHY You never know when an oatmeal pouch is going to roll off a countertop, or roof.
RESULTS Held firm at 4 feet. Popped at 5 feet. Popped even harder at 7 feet.
PRESSURE RESISTANCE
WHAT Stack books on top of a pod.
WHY A novice grocery bagger may pile heavy stuff on an unsuspecting box of pouches.
RESULTS Withstood 43 pounds of pressure (minus the support given by an assistant stabilizing the books) before a spirited shove caused it to burst.
HEAT TOLERANCE
WHAT Microwave a pod at the highest setting.
WHY Seemed like a good idea.
RESULTS Lasted 19 seconds, then simultaneously dissolved and exploded.
A version of this article appears in the March 2012 issue of Fast Company.