If milk goes sour after one week, why should the packaging take years to decompose naturally? That’s the question the designers of Swedish design agency Tomorrow Machine asked themselves when they started to develop a series of food packages where the packaging has the same short life span as the foods they contain. For this and other work Swedish business magazine ‘Veckans affärer’ put Tomorrow Machine 6th in the sustainable category of their top 101 super talents of 2015.
Tomorrow Machine is a Swedish design studio based in Stockholm & Paris, specialized in packaging, product and food concepts. The agency, founded by Anna Glansén and Hanna Billqvist, focuses on new technologies and intelligent materials with the objective ‘to build a better world’.
Among their earlier projects are a Microgarden kit that contains a reusable and renewable sheet of plastic which folds into a self-contained greenhouse, a self-expanding instant food package and beautiful packaging that opens itself when the temperature in the oven is right and the food is ready to be served.
For their most recent project, This too shall pass, Tomorrow Machine developed packaging concepts with a short life span for oils, smoothies and rice. The oil, like olive oil, is packed in a shell of caramalized sugar, coated with wax, that has to cracked like an egg. Smoothies and fresh juice can be contained in a gel made of agar-agar and water. The packaging for rice and other dry goods is made of biodegradable beeswax and must be peeled of like the skin of a fruit.
Apart from their sustainable features, these packages also look great. We hope to hear more from these super talents in 2015.