GoneShells: the edible potato-based juice bottles

Sweden – Tomorrow Machine, an innovative design studio known for researching the future of packaging materials, has joined forces with juice company Eckes Granini to create GoneShells, a starch-based bottle that customers can peel, eat, compost and dissolve in water.

A collaboration between designers and researchers from the strategic innovation programme, BioInnovation, a joint venture by Vinnova, Formas and the Swedish Energy Agency, and experts from the RISE Research Institute of Sweden, these bio-based degradable bottles could revolutionise the packaging industry.

‘With a bottle designed to be torn apart after it has been used, like the peel of a fruit, the idea is that one can speed up the decomposition process,’ Anna Glansén, the founder of Tomorrow Machine, said in a statement. ‘When you break the packaging and put it in contact with water, a natural reaction starts to break down the bottle immediately – and that’s how we created a bottle that can disappear by itself.’

The re-usable packaging market has been around for a while (we expected its expansion back in 2019), but GoneShells is taking things further with a potato-based material that can be dissolved and eaten. With sustainability in mind, Tomorrow Machine has also broadened the food and drink experience. Appetites will adapt to those innovative materials affecting our day-to-day eating habits.