Potatoes, lemons, tangerines, garlic, avocados—the list of produce packaged and sold in plastic mesh bags could go on. And while these bags can technically be reused or repurposed, they often go straight into the garbage bin. What if there were a more sustainable design solution?
As part of a class project, a group of Cal Poly students explored an alternative to packaging citrus fruit like mandarins, lemons, and limes often sold by the bag. Their clever concept, dubbed Froot, would go on to win multiple awards in three separate competitions.
“We use a competition as a class project,” said Professor Javier de la Fuente, the department chair of the Industrial Technology and Packaging department at Cal Poly. He was an advisor for the project along with Linh Toscani and Irene Carbonell. “It’s the Paperboard Packaging Alliance Student Design Challenge. We use their prompt to teach how to design with corrugated paperboard.”
Six students worked together on this project—Heather Lopez, Thucmy Dang, and Colter Pruyn on the structural design side, and then Hannah Kraus, Han Wong, and Fred Pastrana working on graphic design. Thucmy said they did extensive market research across multiple grocery stores to narrow down their project. “We observed that despite natural packaging, such as mandarin rinds, many produce items were unnecessarily wrapped in plastic for bulk handling,” she explained. “Our goal was to develop a scalable, sustainable produce packaging design.”
“From the produce section, we narrowed our focus to specifically small citrus packaging, which currently is packaged primarily in plastic mesh bags that are not recyclable,” Heather Lopez said. “We’ve all used these bags, and we can all agree that they’re difficult to open, they don’t contain the fruit well once they’re open, and they’re not sustainable. Our team wanted to create recyclable packaging that was attractive to the consumer, protected the fruit during transport, displayed the fruit while on the shelf, and contained the fruit after opening.”
The students completed activities throughout the semester that took them through a research phase, including a retail audit and user research in the home, before going into iteration and prototyping. Structurally, the students explored multiple options, including packaging that resembled natural shapes like a slice of citrus fruit, and they experimented with individual packs, basket designs, and stackable trays with lids. Froot started to take shape from inspiration like handled beverage carriers—appealing because, once broken down, it can lay flat.
“Along the way, we learned several valuable lessons,” said Heather. “Some that stuck out to me were not sacrificing functionality for form and not assuming that the way something has always been done is the only way.”
“We wanted to incorporate a handle, but our designs all had the handle sticking out of the top of the box, which didn’t allow for stackability,” she added. “Initially, our solution was to accept that the box would not be stackable or that it would not have a handle. However, we came across a box with a recessed handle, allowing the top of the box to remain a flat surface that allowed for stacking while also including a handle in the design. That was a game changer for us and the moment when the dieline truly came together.”
Graphically, Hannah said one of their big inspirations was Chobani. “Their use of friendly typography, fruit illustrations, and overall brand identity was super relevant to our project,” she said.
“We scoured the internet for unique packaging shapes,” added Han. “Inspiration came from unexpected places, such as the shape of Tesla’s Cybertruck and even chewing gum packaging. These explorations showed us how color choices could make packaging stand out and how the placement of specific text and wording could influence consumers’ decisions.”
The students wanted the container for Froot to be eye-catching yet still simple enough to fold during transport until it would ultimately get assembled in the store. Ultimately, they went with what Heather described as a “twisted cube” shape—a square base and top offset from each other by ninety degrees. That results in triangular sidewalls, and since the top square is smaller than the base, it has a pyramid appearance. And because mesh bags allow consumers to see the produce inside, Froot is designed with circular openings so buyers can still put their eyes on what they buy.
“Something we knew we wanted to include from the beginning was a pattern,” Hannah said regarding the graphics. “Brands such as Target, Nordstrom, and Chobani all use patterns in their brand identity.”
The Froot pattern is lively and colorful—something that grabs your attention in a way that the mesh bags never could. Professor de la Fuente also said the team selected specific hues for the background to make the fruit stand out as much as possible, with each one featuring a slightly different shade.
“These mesh bags are created in the color of the fruit to enhance the color,” he said. “You perceive the oranges as more orange or the lemons as more yellow. They sell more. There is a subtle change in the hue of the background. For limes, it’s slightly greenish, but with lemons, it’s more yellowish. It’s the same pattern, but the color scheme changes.”
Once Froot makes its way into the home, consumers can flip the container over, and it acts as a bowl. The playful pattern brings a bit of fun to the kitchen, or the pack can be broken down and recycled—paper and paperboard are easily recycled and have a high recycling rate compared to other materials.
The initial prompt was simple: replace some form of single-use plastic packaging with a fiber-based solution. What this team designed resulted in a second-place win in the Paperboard Packaging Alliance Student Design Challenge and second overall in the WorldStar Global Packaging Awards (a gold medal for marketing appeal and a bronze medal for sustainability), and they were finalists in the Sabic Circul-a-thon Competition. It also cements sustainability as a critical value in design for students, and when they move on in their careers, they will already know to push their work and explore what’s possible.
“Once these ideas are out there, the industry gets to see other options,” Professor de la Fuente said. “Some will say, ‘That’s too expensive,’ but others will say, ‘Yeah, we can modify our machines to do this.’ You throw ideas out there, and somebody else will keep thinking about this.”