Wide mouth closures as used to store jam, pickles or sauces are reliable, cost effective and have worked and worked well for many years. However, the nature of society is changing and changing rapidly, with a massive increase in the proportion of society over 50 in countries such as Japan, the UK and USA. Further the nature of society is changing with many elderly people living alone or an increased desire amongst both the elderly and for people with disabilities to lead as independent a life as possible. Living longer and living independently raises a whole host of issues not least a reduction in dexterity and strength. In turn, this loss of strength can cause significant problems in accessibility of food. It is estimated that 10% of the over 65 population living in the community in the UK (as opposed to care homes etc) suffer from malnutrition. Obviously, the reasons behind this are complex and cannot be laid squarely at the food and packaging industry. Poverty, poor mental health and lack of well functioning support networks are all hugely influential. However, there is an opportunity for the packaging industry to understand the issues faced by this community and to play its part in designing and promoting packaging that is more readily accessible to the elderly. Essential to this ‘inclusive’ approach to the design of food packaging is a detailed understanding of the forces elderly users can apply and of the influences that make opening certain types of packaging difficult.

This paper outlines the approach undertaken by the authours in understanding the forces generated by consumers across a broad range of wide mouth closure diameters using a device built especially for this purpose. The largest study of its kind, the results are useful for both ergonomicists and packaging designers. Further the authours demonstrate their ‘three stranded approach’ to this problem using both numerical and analytical analysis of the wide mouth closure system and discuss possible future developments for closures of this type.