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Practice Project with Migori Explores How QR Codes Can Make Packaging-Free Shopping More Attractive

migori is the first store in Cologne’s Südstadt to leave packaging behind – for the sake of the environment, as well as to create new options of shopping. To better inform their customers about the products they are buying, migori is teaming up with Competence Centre eStandards experts.

In Germany, about 6 million tons of plastic waste are produced every year. About half of this comes from packaging. That makes 37kg packaging waste per capita, per year*. In normal supermarkets, consumers don’t have much of a choice, as there is plastic packaging everywhere.

migori gives consumers that choice, by selling their products in bulk without individual packaging. The company was founded in 2017; its name is created from the Japanese midori (= green) and gorilla. Apart from the unique selling point “packaging-free”, they mostly sell organic products from the Cologne region. The store’s philosophy is very explicit: “at migori, packaging-free shopping (…) is the logical continuation of the organic concept – it is about sustainability and environmental protection by avoiding unnecessary plastic waste.” Migori. This concept has been successful in Germany for a number of years, for good reasons: a packaging-free purchase is a direct contribution to the fight against the world-wide production and disposal of garbage.

migori and its consumers are faced with a challenge, though: they do not want packaging waste, but they do want information about the products. Perhaps they are even more interested in information than the average consumer, because they also want to know about a product’s sustainability impacts. As it is not possible to use the packaging for information transmission, details about ingredients, origin, shelf life, nutritional values or storage instructions are no longer readily available. Introducing new products that are unfamiliar to the customer also becomes much more difficult. This is where the Competence Centre eStandards’ expertise comes in.

The goal of migori’s project with the Competence Center eStandards is the development of a concept for how product information can be made available to customers digitally, supported by eStandards, both at the store and at home. To this end, we will develop QR codes which provide the customer with information on the product. Those can be attached to the product container at the store and may also be designed for customers to take them home, to provide access to the product information at any time and from any location.

This will allow packaging-free stores like migori to communicate with their customers more effectively, making purchases more transparent and thus further strengthening the trend towards packaging-free shopping.

Mittelstand 4.0 Kompetenzzentrum eStandards

The Mittelstand 4.0 Kompetenzzentrum eStandards is an initiative of Mittelstand-Digital. Mittelstand-Digital informs small and medium-sized enterprises about the opportunities and challenges of digitalisation. Regional Kompetenzzentren help local small retailers as well as larger production companies with expert knowledge, demonstration centres, and networks to facilitate the exchange of experiences and practical examples. The Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy enables the free use of all Mittelstand-Digital offerings. Further information can be found at www.mittelstand-digital.de.

For further information, please contact Thomas Wagner.

* https://www.nabu.de/imperia/md/content/nabude/abfallpolitik/170221-nabu-kunststoffabfaelle_deutschland_2016.pdf

 

Photo by Andrew Spencer on Unsplash

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