Milk packaging as a semiotic technology of the self

At one level, food packaging would seem to perform an intermediary function by interceding between producers and consumers. In this sense, product packaging could be conceptualized as market actors who ‘construct’ or ‘add’ value by mediating how goods are perceived by consumers. Beyond matters of representation, however, food packaging can equally be understood as a means by which consumers gain and enact knowledge of themselves. In this way, food packaging does more than sell to a target market but also operates as a semiotic technology of the self. Using the example of ‘grass fed’ milk, a discourse–design approach is adopted, demonstrating how choices in packaging materials, textures and shapes, the colours applied, along with writing, typography and iconography not only qualify the selling features of a product but also contribute to consumers’ own self-understanding. Accordingly, it is argued that packaging should be understood as a medium through which consumers may come to experience themselves through the integration of the truth it bears regarding their own will and actions. In short, in using the grass-fed carton as a guide in their choice of milk product, consumers adopt truths about themselves as ethical subjects who demonstrate care for animals, family members and themselves.