Featured in the Annual Japanese Package Design 2023

The packaging for OYAOYA, a dried vegetable brand, was selected for the VI/BI category of the Japan Package Design Awards and featured in "Japan Package Design Annual 2023."

Japan Package Design Annual 2023

Vegetables are Unfortunate

OYAOYA received an award in the VI/BI category of the Japan Package Design Awards for 2023. At that time, Masanobu Nishimura, one of the judges, provided the following comment (quoted below):

"Vegetables are unfortunate. This is because they don't benefit from package design in stores. In contrast, products in boxes, bags, cans, or bottles are bought in order from the front without hesitation. But vegetables are different. Their color, shape, flaws, and even weight are compared by 'smart consumers'? OYAOYA made me think about what 'package design' truly is." (Masanobu Nishimura)

"A family-loving cucumber that shared its much-needed water and nutrients with its siblings and ended up bent. A sleepy radish that found its fluffy soil bed so comfortable it slept until its fruit cracked.
These off-spec vegetables, which don't make it to supermarket shelves and are rarely seen in daily life, have untold stories. Like humans, they have 'family structures,' 'home environments,' and 'personalities' that cause them to not meet the standards due to their appearance."

This is a passage from an article I wrote about off-spec vegetables when OYAOYA was founded. Just like humans, vegetables have a kind of life, growing, being harvested, and then shipped. Vegetables that don't meet the standards often end up in places where they never see the spotlight.

However, this comment made me realize that even vegetables that meet standards and are shipped normally can have a side story where they don't get the spotlight at supermarkets or retailers and thus end their "life" without it. Recently, there's been a focus on food loss in farms, but supermarkets also have similar vegetable waste. Yet, most of these vegetables, having been displayed and aged in stores, lose their destination and face the reality of being discarded.

Among the farmers OYAOYA partners with, some produce exceptionally sweet premium vegetables that have been featured in the media, such as Kyo Komari radishes from Kyotamba and "over-the-top" tomatoes from Kumihama. While these vegetables have very strong individual characteristics, these traits are valued, and they have a dedicated customer base, allowing them to follow a unique shipping route rather than the standard one.

Based on this comment, I realized that what's visible in humans, like education and work, is like package design for vegetables, and the farmers' cultivation methods are like family environments.
Both vegetables and humans are quite similar. I want to explore through OYAOYA how we can increase the value of vegetables and whether that is truly important for vegetables and farmers.