Views sought over symbolic gesture

Suppliers unhappy with new packaging symbols designed by an industry group to identify cases in shops' warehouses should raise their objections now, the group warned.

Unveiling prototype designs at the IGD Retail Logistics conference last month, Nestlé UK's supply chain director Chris Tyas said that all the big retailers' suppliers of wines and seasonal items would be expected to code outer cases with the symbols by January 2007.

If they were not happy with the designs, they should make their views felt, he said. "Some people are saying that they are impractical, that they are not big enough, or whatever. But if you stand back and wait for other people to make the decisions you only have yourself to blame. This is meant to be about collaboration."

The best way of helping shelf stackers find product in the backroom was shelf-ready packaging using perforated branded cases, he said. Where that was not possible, the ECR (efficient consumer response) UK packaging standards group, made up of retailers and suppliers, had devised a set of symbols to denote items on promotion, wines and seasonal product.

Cases of wine, for example, would carry a circle containing letters denoting country of origin (eg Fr for France) and shaded for red wine or left blank for white.

These and other symbols would become mandatory for those supplying leading retailers.

The packaging standards group was also finalising details of new colour coded cases to help store staff identify different meat products, said IGD programme leader Tarun Patel. "Beef might be red, lamb green, for example."