The egg box that updates a humble yet classic design

It is just over 100 years since Canadian inventor Joseph Coyle perfected a design to prevent eggs breaking on their way to market.
His design was the first egg carton, offering a measure of protection for this most breakable of commodities. Coyle’s cardboard creation was first made by hand before a machine was invented to manufacture them after World War I.
Later in the 1950s, British designer H G Bennett created the design we see on supermarket shelves and in corner stores – made of cardboard, moulded paper pulp or plastic, and with an individual space for each egg to sit. As food packaging has become more sophisticated – from aseptic linings in cartons of milk to vacuum-packed fish – the humble egg carton has changed little. Shock absorbing and cheap to produce, the carton has also become a signifier for what it contains – you don’t need to see the eggs to know what it contains.
Hungarian design student Eva Valicsek, however, may have come up with a replacement. Her concept for an egg carton of the future – made of cardboard and a rubber band – was made for a university competition but has already received some cautious commercial interest.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130319-updating-the-humble-eggbox-design