Eggstra! Eggstra! From cracking the story behind the carton to examining its pop culture impact, Egg Week features a scramble of everything you ever wanted to know about our nation’s favourite breakfast food – in all its forms.
Is there a more humbly immaculate commercial packaging object than the plain pulp egg carton? This biscuit-coloured biodegradable vessel is a masterpiece of streamlined efficiency, embracing a dozen fragile lily-white eggs in its 12 snug cradles and whisking them, miraculously intact, from farm to grocer to your refrigerator at home, as unblemished as the moment they were laid.
Sturdy enough to carry in one hand, the two sculpted knobs of protruding fibre on its base fit ingeniously into the pre-punched holes of its lid to secure a seal, the carton is pledged to fulfil its modest function and then – duty performed, eggs eaten – is prepared to be recycled, composted or repurposed for crafts, or used to soundproof a previous wall. Such unassuming perfection in design is one of the quiet reliable pleasures of the whole messy human experience.
