Delivery Boxes: SolidsBox

Usually delivered during the day, along with other groceries, these boxes are used to hold solid goods we use regularly and buy in fairly large quantities (by volume). For example:

Overview

These are the size of a large cereal or washing-powder box (36x25x13 cm or 14x10x5 in.) and made of dark green plastic - but they are covered in a thin plastic “skin” showing the branding of the contents.

These are the same size and of similar construction to the PaperBox. Single skinned but less garish in colour as these will remain on a special rack in the customer’s utility room wall, inside a kitchen cupboard or inside their refrigerator or freezer. They are designed to hold loose powder or granular items – from washing powder to pasta shapes; sugar to dry dog food.

Use

The lid opens right up to allow easy cleaning but also includes a flip-out spout to let you pour the contents out as you would washing powder from a large box. However, depending on the content, these boxes can be quite heavy when full and if mounted on a wall may be challenging for children or the elderly to lift down and tip up. The bottom face of the container’s inside is therefore sloped down towards the front where a sliding gate can be lifted up to let the contents run out under gravity into a bowl held beneath the front of the container.

A latch mechanism on the gate ensures that it does not open by accident during transit but can be opened automatically when the container is being cleaned so as to allow this area to be thoroughly cleaned.

Impact

Reusable boxes for these classes of goods are obviously less wasteful than the sacks or boxes we buy them in today. However, the upfront cost of a container will be significant and hence there will be incentives to offer customers bulk purchase deals to amortise the initial cost of the container over several refills. Done properly, these can encourage brand loyalty as it will be more expensive to keep changing brands.

Not all of the content types need be pourable. The same container can be used to hold six toilet rolls or three kitchen towel rolls – in which case these are removed via the lid.

Re-skinning

It may be that one customer does not continue to use the same brand enough times to justify the cost of the container. There will also be wear and tear on the container's outer surface each time it makes a round-trip back to the hub for refilling. This is why they all share a common “shell” but have a branded outer “skin” of thin, printed, coloured plastic. A container can be refreshed or rebranded simply by replacing the outer skin. Each shell should therefore last many years.

Content Measurement

Sensors can either be built into the boxes themselves or into specially designed shelves. These can tell how heavy the box is and, knowing what it is meant to contain and how the contents have been dropping, can tell when it's time for a replacement. This could be a suggestion presented to you the next time you order groceries - letting you decide whether to restock before or after you use the last of the current batch.

Hygiene

Boxes holding food need to be thoroughly washed at the hub before being reused. These boxes are designed to be hygienic - with rounded corners and the minimum of surface detail so that germs cannot hide in the crevices. The automatic washing and sterilising systems must clean the boxes to the same standard that we expect of our already reusable milk bottles.

Components