Container group consists of Bethany Casperite, Elissa Meyers and John Pender. We are looking at the packing, packaging, distribution and display processes used in the field of farm stand/market culture. Our group is working on a design that fulfills the needs of the farmer to package produce and deliver it to the stand. We plan to incorporate a display system in with a modular distributing container that is organized, reusable and easy for the farmer to use.
We took our produce containers to Solly Brothers farm and interviewed Bob about our
containers. He was pleased and happily critiqued our design. We found it interesting
that our lid design was good enough for larger produce and produce that stands on end
such as asparagus. Also he liked the idea of how it can be taken from the field and put
directly to display. Watch and see his opinion on our urban produce container.
Urban Farming Containing at Solly Brothers Farm from PirateDesign on Vimeo.
Here is our rendered plastic model on display at an open air urban farmer’s market.
This design is the final concept for our plastic produce container.
The callouts are updates from our original design.
The is our container ready to be loaded and transported back to the farm from the Rittenhouse Square
farmers market. Once the containers are empty they are stacked and locked together. We recommend that
the containers should be stacked three tiers tall with a lid.
How To set up a Produce Container from PirateDesign on Vimeo.
This is a video on how to setup our produce container box once it’s placed
on the display table. The farmer rotates the metal handles through the
bottom of the container to create a leg for the container to be tilted.
The container fits nine quart containers…
It also fits twelve pint containers.
After putting the finishing touches on our model by adding the color and graphics we went out to the Solly Bros.
Farm who are soon to be part of The Food Trust in Philadelphia. These are some photos of the process of our box.
The first step is to pick the produce and put it in the container.
The next step is to pack and transport. The boxes latch together, and if there is a larger size of produce,
the lid adds extra space. The lid is also able to be linked to.
The last step is to direct display the produce in the containers at the farmstand. This is a photo of our container at the
Farm to City stand for Rineer Family Farms. It was where we first began noticing the farmers using the baskets and
quart/pint containers as the elevation for the bins that they transfer their produce in from the wax boxes. We thought
to show them how our container works.
Here is the functioning model of our produce box in the works. We have got the structure together but have
not put the finishing touches on it quite yet. Our final design of the container will be slightly different; it will
be more stylized like the plastic milk crate container. We plan to put the side panel graphics on the side of
the box and also we plan to prime the MDF and then paint it in a more plastic looking brown.
These are some shots of us working on the final model.
These are a couple of ideas we have been thinking of for our produce container
side panels that were inspired by the vintage produce crates.
We have been starting to think a bit about graphics that would be shown on the side of the box.
We have been researching graphics of the produce industry and have noticed that a lot of boxes
have the vintage style graphic on the sides. On the wax boxes even today there seems to be a sort
of old fashioned font and picture of fruit on the side. We are thinking we will explore this style
and put some sort of design on our box.