BRITISH AIRWAYS
Making simple objects inspiring

Tasked by British Airways to develop creative concepts for onboard food packaging on European shorthaul, Grain needed to balance several challenges – to combine packaging effectiveness with recyclability, to bring a fresh appeal to a powerful brand, and to give the food range a coherent look-and-feel that expresses freshness and in-flight enjoyment.

BRIEF
British Airways’ brief, issued through catering providers LSG Sky Chefs, was to develop packaging proposals for a new range of in-flight cold ‘finger food’ that would facilitate recycling of all food containers. BA proposed a new, younger sub-brand for the food range – BA Café – endorsed visually by the BA masterbrand.

APPROACH
Given the core functional requirement of recyclability, we decided at the outset to simplify the packaging materials into a ‘monomaterial’ range, specifying only paper, card and cellulose-based materials. Having identified several suitable standard items, to realize the full packaging range required us to design additional structural forms like the snack pod and the finger food tub.

Given BA’s strong ‘flag carrier’ personality, the packaging needed to celebrate the brand’s Britishness. Each packaging form carries a quote relating to food from a well-known British personality, set out as a ‘wallpaper’ over the entire packaging structure. The packaging is coloured leaf-green, expressing its fresh, young and environmentally-friendly nature.

RESULT
While Grain delivered a complete ‘turnkey’ solution, implementation was prevented by challenges to recycling within the existing catering infrastructure. However, the project remains inspiring for its synergy of 2D graphics and 3D forms – demonstrating how a strong idea, expressed through distinctive colour and typography, can give functional packaging a strong presence.