SMART AND CONNECTED PACKAGING At Packaging Innovations & Empack
2026, the Museum of Failure experience will focus on how learning from failure can accelerate progress in materials development, packaging design, automation, and sustainability. The Museum of Failure was founded
by psychologist Dr Samuel West and has toured internationally since 2017. Its exhibitions reveal common patterns behind corporate misjudgements: overconfidence, fear of change, poor user understanding, technological tunnel vision, and resistance to uncomfortable ideas. Dr West said, “Failure is not the opposite
of progress; it is the engine that drives it. Every meaningful innovation is built on experiments that didn’t quite work, ideas that arrived too early, or assumptions that turned out to be wrong. “The Museum of Failure exists to make
those stories visible, so people can learn from them rather than hide them. In industries like packaging, where pressure to innovate is intense, understanding why things fail is just as important as celebrating what succeeds.” At the exhibition, visitors will see how
these same traps can affect packaging innovation, from material choices and automation strategies to sustainable design and consumer behaviour. Alongside the exhibition, the Museum of Failure will also run a dedicated workshop session, showing how organisations can use structured learning from past mistakes to: Design better packaging systems, de-risk automation projects, develop more realistic sustainability strategies and avoid repeating common innovation blind spots. The aim is practical, not philosophical:
helping packaging professionals make better decisions by understanding why good ideas sometimes go wrong. Josh Brooks, Divisional Director –
Packaging Portfolio at Easyfairs, organisers of PackagingInnovations & Empack, added: “Innovation often starts with mistakes, but too few industries take the time to study them properly. Bringing the Museum of Failure to the UK for the very first time, and to Packaging Innovations & Empack, is about giving our community permission to think differently. “It’s not about celebrating failure,
it’s about understanding it, so the next generation of packaging solutions is smarter, braver, and more resilient.”
Sustainability meets smart packaging Sustainability is now inseparable from smart packaging discourse. Rising regulatory
56 • KENNEDY’S CONFECTION • DECEMBER/JANUARY 2025/26
FOR CONFECTIONERY BRANDS, PACKAGING HAS ALWAYS
PLAYED MULTIPLE ROLES: KEEP CHOCOLATES FRESH, PRESERVE THE CRISP SNAP OF A SUGAR SHELL, PROTECT DELICATE GUMMIES AND COMMUNICATE BRAND STORIES. TODAY, THOSE ROLES ARE LAYERED WITH DIGITAL CONNECTIVITY AND INTELLIGENCE
pressures—for example, upcoming EU mandates like Digital Product Passports requiring detailed on-pack sustainability data—are catalysing adoption of connected solutions that can communicate lifecycle information efficiently. In confectionery, material innovations
are already under way. Big brands have moved to recyclable, biodegradable and mono-material structures—such as Nestlé’s Smarties and Mars Wrigley’s paper-based trials—responding simultaneously to environmental demands and consumer expectations for transparency and circularity. Smart packaging contributes here
by offering data interfaces that help consumers recycle correctly, access ingredient histories, or view carbon footprint information—all without cluttering physical pack space. From a branding standpoint, connected
packaging opens new vectors for loyalty and first-party data. As traditional
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