Their sustainability story was strong. Their packaging was falling apart in consumers' hands.
The Opportunity
A cosmetics start-up had built a brand around sustainability — but their packaging was undermining the promise. Bottles leaked. Pumps failed. Consumer complaints were rising. The company had no packaging engineer and no way to diagnose whether the problem was the design, the material, the supplier, or all three. Every failed pump was a refund request and a trust problem.
The Solution
We started by reassessing the sustainability strategy — separating genuine priorities from marketing language. Then we ran a structured supplier scan, testing each bottle-and-pump combination against functional requirements, sustainability targets, and the specific failure modes generating complaints. One supplier's pump failed at the 200-use mark — well below the 500 uses the product required. That single finding eliminated half the shortlist and redirected the entire sourcing strategy.
The Impact
The start-up now has a packaging strategy with defined sustainability targets they can actually deliver on, a qualified supplier base, and a bottle-and-pump specification that works. Consumer complaints from packaging failures have stopped. And the team has a framework for evaluating future packaging decisions independently — they no longer need to call us every time a supplier sends a new sample.
Picture credit: https://www.the-glow.com/