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Packaging World on Marketplace: How COVID-19 Might Change Packaging for Good

Packaging World Editor Matt Reynolds talked packaging with Marketplace’s Kai Ryssdal earlier this week. Here’s how that interview unfolded…

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PW:

Marketplace, which is a division of Minnesota Public Radio, hosted by Kai Ryssdal, and airs on NPR, is kind of a big deal in the world of radio. How did you get involved with this interview?

Matt Reynolds:

It was accidental to be honest, but if I had to point to one reason they became interested, it’d be good SEO for our Packaging World website. Marketplace producers were researching topics like sustainability and e-commerce, both topics that we should rank highly for based on our coverage area. And when producer Maria Hollenhorst was doing Google searches on these topics, it led her to one of my articles.

The way she described it to me, once she was on PW’s website, it was one of those moments where a thriving, dynamic world was revealed to her that she hadn’t really considered before. And that’s where packaging lives in the consumer mind, it’s part of the fabric of everyday life, but so often overlooked and hiding in plain sight. With sustainability and the pandemic-based boost of e-commerce, packaging is more frequently coming into focus.

PW:

Was Marketplace looking for specific information on post-COVID packaging changes, or did the topic evolve organically during your talk?

Matt Reynolds:

As a journalist, I often find myself so new to a subject that I don’t even know what to ask. I think Maria felt a little of that. And by the same token, I wasn’t sure what to serve up to her that would resonate. But she definitely set parameters for what she knew her audience would be interested in. I remember excitedly telling her about a breakage and returns rate stat around e-commerce that I found fascinating, but she quickly sniffed it out as not being of interest to the average listener. So it was a great collaboration between the two of us, with me sending up weather balloons of topic ideas that I found interesting and illustrative of our packaging industry, and Maria providing a litmus test for what might and might not be of interest to her audience. This helped narrow the field of topics, and by the time I got on the line with Kai Ryssdal, they were more clearly delineated.

PW:

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