Some of the most interesting innovation in consumer goods isn’t happening in flavour, claims or ingredients.

It’s happening in packaging format.

There’s still a huge amount of white space here - better structures, smarter materials, new ways to present the same product.

But it’s also one of the easiest places to mess up. 

Change the format too much and the product stops being recognisable. And in a supermarket, where decisions are made at speed, that’s fatal.

Today’s story is about a brand that understands that tension - and uses packaging innovation, paired with solid fundamentals, to disrupt a very boring category.

This edition of supergoods is brought to you by Mind Control - the branding and packaging studio behind this newsletter.

Packaging that works at speed

Mind Control is a brand and packaging agency helping FMCG brands reduce risk and improve shelf performance. We test, refine, and build packaging designed to scale.

That looks sick but… what is it?

I spoke to co-founder Jordan Woolley about the launch of his new laundry detergent brand, EAT DIRT.

It’s one of those designs that immediately grabs your attention. The packaging format itself has strong structure - a tin is a beautiful canvas for impactful design. But it’s the illustration that really slaps you in the face. Illustrated by Cachetejack and the broader design by Marta Veludo Studio, EAT DIRT looks nothing like a traditional laundry liquid and more like something you’d hang on the wall.

Along with his co-founder Catherine Barr, Jordan operates a creative agency day-to-day and joins a growing contingent of agency-owners turned product-brand owners (much like our friends at Slather).

Jordan shared that they spend their days working with founders and brands on the pursuit of reinventing their categories - and it sounds like that drive was contagious.

This won’t work on a supermarket shelf.

Not immediately anyway. The problem with disruptive design format is that people don’t know what it is, and in a busy grocery environment where you have a list of 11 things and screaming kids, you’re not particularly inclined to find out.

But it’s not designed for a grocery environment. I asked Jordan how they plan to tackle this problem and it’s clear they’ve been thinking about it from the start.

So if somewhat obscure design is a core part of the proposition, then how do they still land the right message?

The packaging doesn’t need to explain itself because in this case, it’s not being asked to.

Whether you need your packaging design to act as a full-funnel marketing channel or simply a container depends entirely on your distribution strategy.

If your plan is to go to a big box retailer, stack ‘em high and watch ‘em fly, then you need packaging that converts new audiences on the spot.

But EAT DIRT are taking a different tack, and building a different path to market. 

Like most new brands, they are launching DTC where they have control over the entire consumer experience and email funnels are more important than packaging design.

But where EAT DIRT breaks away from the crowd is in their approach to retail. Jordan shared that they are speaking to a small number of independent retailers who share their values like slow-fashion stores, sustainable goods shops, vintage stores and delis.

This is where loads of brands go wrong. They don’t match the channel and the shopping environment with their product design. Targeting fashion outlets with a beautifully designed detergent is a smart play, because people in those stores linger and explore whilst also being more open to design and trends.

But format and distribution can’t do all the heavy lifting - the product needs to perform

And this is where I think EAT DIRT might have an edge.

The team use scent as a trojan horse. In laundry, scent is one of the biggest purchase drivers and something that keeps people hooked and coming back.

So instead of using traditional detergent scent profiles of “sea breeze” and “sun fresh”, EAT DIRT focuses on creating their own signature scents. The brand debuts with its flagship fragrance Bitter Orange - a blend of mandarin, neroli and amber notes, developed following a process more traditionally associated with fine fragrance and high-end scented candles.

All of this doesn’t mean EAT DIRT is guaranteed to win.

Scaling a disruptive format is hard. New product development still matters. Price sensitivity creeps in. And if the brand ever decides to step into major grocery, the rules will change quickly and brutally.

But as a launch strategy, this is a smart one.

They’re not asking the packaging to do everything, everywhere, all at once. They’re choosing environments where curiosity beats speed, where design can breathe, and where the product can be explained through experience, not just graphics.

And they’re leading with the thing people actually care about in laundry: how their clothes smell.

Cool design and beautiful scent get people in. Sustainability and materials keep them around. Most brands get that order wrong.

EAT DIRT feels like a rare case where format, product, and route to market are genuinely aligned. And in a category that hasn’t really changed in decades, that alone makes it worth paying attention to.