In March this year, I packaged about half the hotel pilot order for our all natural shampoo and conditioner products. The conditioner was a brand new product that met the pilot’s needs, but we didn’t have time to work out a preservation system in it before I had to order the printed tins with the ingredients list. Given that all of the products were scheduled to be used within the next month, that didn’t seem like a big issue at the time. Yet, there’s the challenge with perishable products.

When the pandemic hit, the pilot was put on hold. Fast forward to today, and I’ve been living with the stink of something crossed between lemon toilet bowl cleaner and a dirty cat litter box. Sitting in the corner of my office were those boxes of old conditioner.

Knowing the shelf life risk, I realised by month five that I would have to redo the entire pilot order if it ever got the green light again (which it did). Still, I couldn’t bear to throw these unused tins away which is why they were still there stinking up my office.

So this week, I’ve taken hours of my time to open and wash each of the 1000+ tins so that I can take the aluminium packaging to be recycled. Unfortunately, I can’t get the smell out of them, and therefore can’t reuse them – loss of money and lots of time.

Such is the challenge with perishable products. At least our current version of the conditioner now has a preservative in the recipe to last a bit longer.