New perspectives derived

Voice of Consumer initiative taken by the Tinplate Company of India (TCIL) leaped into its second round. The ambience of TCIL’s Kolkata guest house provided a warm and welcome stage for such a consumer interaction. A set of 5 panelists was chosen to be interviewed for the day.  Enriched by the former session, the second round of discussion was more structured and planned.

The informal chat session once more added some valuable perspectives. A panelist mentioned that, on a recent visit to a popular cookie shop called Cookie Man, she was given options as to buy the products either packed loosely in a plastic bag or in a beautiful tin container. She proudly added, “I chose the tin as I could put it to use even after consuming the cookies”. Majority of them agreed that, contents remained much safer in a tin container.

A concerned customer expressed her inability to distinguish between food grade plastic and a non food grade plastic. Likely, one of the ladies added, “To be very honest though we are aware about environmental concerns, we do not actually think about it while buying a product”.

A homemaker stated that, she was willing to buy ready to eat foods, if they were available in tin cans. They all agreed upon the convenience of using canned fish which also helped them in making better sandwiches.

An enthusiastic interviewee added that, on her recent visit to Steel Junction- the steel lifestyle store of Tata Steel, she was smitten by the beautiful tins cans displayed for storage purpose and she enunciated her desire to furnish her home with many more of them. One of them pointed out that, “If there was a structured system of taking back used cans then we would certainly not mind paying a higher price for canned food items”.

 However, one of the ladies present there candidly stated that,” most of us are unaware of tinplate and such a session was an eye-opener”. The group acknowledged that, “Now that we know how eco-friendly tinplate is, we will surely keep it in mind while buying products”.

The informative and interactive process concluded on a positive note. The panelist wished to be updated with progresses made in the field of tin plate packaging. An idea to include children in the upcoming interactions was proposed.  The ladies felt they now had a far better knowledge of tin packaging. Thus, second intervention of VOC was a success.

Through the last two sessions it was noticed that though the consumers start off with little knowledge about tinplate, by the end of the session they are quite favourably inclined towards tin cans.18 more such interactions are planned in due course of time, to capture consumer preferences in packaging.

Click to view session 1