Highlighting Packaging Innovation to Promote Brand Sales (Part 2)

Stand out in the shelf

Stand-up pouches have become the mainstream form of packaging due to their excellent visual effects, product differentiation and preservation. What's more important is that the convenience of resealability and portability is accepted by consumers.

Stand-up pouches have entered everything from small foods to soups to pet foods. Businessmen began to adopt new stand-up pouch designs to capture a bigger market. One strategy is to distinguish products with different bag shapes, cat type, cartoon type, or fruit type. Standing bags are entering a new stage of development.

The need for retort pouches for preprocessed foods will also grow rapidly in the coming years. Due to the success of the development of pet food standing bags, manufacturers of soup, sauce, fruit, meat and poultry and seafood are also exploring the possibility of using stand-up pouches.

Children's games

Have you tried to open a child-safe packaging and found it also prevents adults? How to balance between "zero open" and adult friendliness is still a thorny issue.

Mead Westvaco's Global Care for Health organization described its drug-protective, adult-friendly single metering blister pack called Surapektm. Surepaktm packaging contains tear-resistant cardboard lids made of high-strength plastic. A self-locking device on one side safely closes the package lid.

When the lock is opened, the user simply lifts the lid and the blister card is nested inside, leaving plenty of room for the booklet. Surepaktm can be used in high-speed automatic production lines, semi-automatic production lines, and custom colors and sizes according to user needs. Can also adjust the printing / polishing and embossing / gravure, foil, film / foil composite processing range.

Dinner on the dashboard

Whether it is work or going out to the family on weekends, we spend a lot of time on the road, which provides food and beverage producers with the convenience of producing and selling products that we call “dinner on the dashboard”.

A successful example is Campbell's Soup at Handtm. The microwaveable 103/4 oz. plastic cup can fit into the car's beverage holder perfectly. Without a spoon, the drinker can hold it in one hand and drive the other hand. Initially developed four varieties, "Soap at Hand" became the most successful performance in the history of the company. As a result, Campbell currently added seven new varieties.

Another example is Microwave Italian pasta with Very Italiano IQF (Individual QuickFrozen). After succeeding in Italy, it is marching to the United States and the feature of cup-packed pasta is "strapflap" cover. In Europe, the 250-gram single-person measuring cup has nine-flavored pasta.

With the prevalence of "Cup of Pasta" and "Dinner on the Dashboard", consumers will also see the appearance of many cups of food and drinks. The use of cups as a form of packaging will also extend to many new markets, including breakfast, condiments, sauces, health and beauty products and chemicals.

Cooking takes only one step

In the "improved cooking" era, fast food is the main choice for consumers. Self-venting microwaveable trays that can be used for cooking, delivery, reheating, and eating represent the next trend for easy packaging.

This technology is SimpleStepstm, vacuum tray packaging made of 9x6-inch multi-layer trays, with vacuum body cover, printed cardboard sleeve or shrink labels. The main component of the thermoforming tray is polypropylene and sealant, and the cover is a polyolefin-based barrier structure to ensure the proper refrigerated shelf life of the inner food.

The processor packs food into trays, vacuum-packs, cooks, adds sleeves, or shrinks labels. For consumers, preparation is very simple. Simply remove the outer package from the tape before the microwave and peel it from the vent cover after heating. When the contents are heated, the vapor is automatically discharged. When heated, the handle on the side of the tray is always cool. Because the cover pierces the holes and remains on the food, no food spills.

No longer standard canister

The trend toward convenience is also seen in the most traditional form of packaging, metal cans. Whether it is easy-to-open, self-cooling or self-heating technology, can makers have made many innovations to appeal to today's car-time-driven consumer attitudes.

More and more food processors are investigating the benefits of easy open lids for fruit, vegetables, soup, pet food, beans, pasta, pudding, and custards.

Ease of opening is judged according to the following characteristics: the "tag route" that lifts the tag, the "exploding force" that pierces the score, the "tear force" that starts peeling, and the "peel force" that opens the panel. These forces are very important. The smaller the force needed, the more acceptable the consumer.

An example that meets the needs of food processors for their ease of opening and abuse is Crown Cork & Seal`s Eole IIItm. Grasp the balance between tearing and peeling forces that control the opening. The use of thinner steel plates with twice as much strength reduces the material consumption. The Eole IIItm reduces the force required to open the tank by 25%.

Self-cooling and self-heating technologies have also seen great development. Since the cold can, when opened, the beverage is cooled to a desired temperature by a special mechanical device, providing new market potential for soft drinks, beer, flavored alcoholic beverages, and the like.

The principle of self-heating cans is just the opposite. Push the button to heat coffee, tea, soup and hot chocolate. Nestlé UK launched the world's first self-heating can.

End

Users always expect packaging innovation, and industrial manufacturers are also looking for creative ways to meet their needs.

Because of this recognition, brand promoters and suppliers started to collaborate as early as the product development stage, in order to develop more convenient, more functional production, filling, and affixing than competitors. Labeling and sealing packaging machinery to enhance brand awareness and ability to control the market.

Vice President of Industry, PMMI, American Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Association
Ben Miyares

Source: China Packaging Magazine