Food Packaging Trends in a Changing, Fast-Moving World
Food packaging is a be-all and end-all in today’s consumerist world. Especially in a saturated market, the package may just be what you need to stand out and communicate to your consumers the sum and substance of your brand. Of course, the packaging by itself carries a whole trail of suggestions about your product, including food quality, brand perception, and user convenience — and these are some of the essential aspects you should consider as you look for a supplier.
1. Food quality and safety
Your packaging must improve or maintain the quality and safety of your food product, stabilise or else enhance the foodstuff’s composition and nutrition. You must see to it that the appearance of the food is maintained, with no adverse effects whatsoever to odour and flavour.
The packaging is essential in that it acts as a passive barrier to delay spoilage. Food is perishable to various degrees, and some have a longer shelf-life than others. Therefore, depending on your food product, the packaging will have different requirements. For example, with bread and bakery products, one must always be on the lookout for mould; in this regard, the package used should be airtight and moisture-absorbent. Certain brands utilise a clear plastic portion of the food container to allow customers to easily see if the bread has turned mouldy in the course of storing it.
Likewise, diverse foodstuffs such as fruits and vegetables, fish and seafood, and meat and poultry will all have different requirements for food to stay fresh. For instance, fruits and vegetables will need to be stored with the intent of slowing down the ripening process, and seafood will have to be stored with the thought of controlling malodor and humidity.
2. Brand enhancement
As you walk down the grocery aisle and take in all those arrays of products in their explosion of colours and textures, you would no doubt be assailed by the vibrant array of visual choices. You take in rows and rows and hundreds of similarly packaged products, and unavoidably, you will tend to overlook those that are decked too unremarkably or too generically.
The package serves as your consumers’ product introduction; this is why there is a common injunction to “not judge a book by its cover”, because — like it or not — in this fast-paced world, first impressions do matter, whether you are a product or a person. Your packaging must deliver a compelling value proposition to the customer. It must tell the consumer what your product is about as well as favourably engage their visual senses. The more “wow factor” involved, the better.
3. User convenience
Today’s lifestyle can be summarily described as “on-the-go”. You must take into account that your consumers have a penchant for increasingly hectic lifestyles. Therefore, you should decide on your packaging with consumer benefit and convenience in mind. For example, in a lifestyle where there is less inclination to wash dishes, a solution would be to use plastic food packaging.
You must remember that user convenience is a multi-step endeavour that involves the purchase and use, as well as the disposal of the food package or container. When it comes to deliberating on the type of package or container to use for your brand, you must remember to place consumer experience at the heart of your business decisions.
Conclusion – it all matters
At the end of the day, whatever reasons food packaging have been used for have been enhanced since the course of the pandemic. More brands have taken notice of the aesthetic and marketing purposes food packaging provides, and in a market where everyone has done so, businesses that fail to look into this aspect of their business will, unfortunately, drop out.
If you are new to the process of incorporating food packaging into your F&B business, we at Supply Smith are keen to help you out. From the common types of materials used in food packaging to custom-fit solutions, check out our catalogue of food packaging options or talk to any of our experts and we’ll get you the right fit for your business today.