Food packaging is a vibrant industry with dozens of innovations emerging on the scene each year. But 2020 will likely be the year food packaging professionals look back on—remembering COVID-19’s full impact, and how it transformed the industry for years to come.

TOP 5 TRENDS IN FOOD PACKAGING DESIGN

Food, glorious food—and to that, we would add food packaging. It’s functional, sure, but the material, design and what the packaging communicates are what gets our Veritiv packaging teams excited.

As personal and corporate environmental responsibility grows, so has the demand for alternative packaging materials that can properly protect products while reducing environmental effects. Global name brands are even making sustainable packaging part of their corporate objectives.

Take a trip to your neighborhood liquor store or warehouse club, and you’ll be greeted with a dazzling variety of wine and spirits on the shelves. Look closer and you’ll see packaging designs and styles you might not have noticed before. The wine and spirits industry is shaped by consumers’ preferences. But one area these consumers may not think much about helps manufacturers and distributors stand out in a competitive market: packaging.

Amazon’s Frustration-Free Packaging program is not only affecting Amazon sellers, but also other e-commerce and retail brands. All sellers whose Amazon-fulfilled packages are larger than 18" x 14" x 8" or heavier than 20 lbs. must meet certification guidelines or face steep chargebacks of $1.99 per unit. Brands such as leading toymaker Hasbro are certifying their packages to reduce waste, costs and damage, while making them easier for consumers to open.

The equipment you choose can make or break your packaging—and even your product. So how do you know when it’s time for an upgrade? “There are key signs that indicate it is time to evaluate the situation,” says Julius Little, Director, Equipment and Load Containment Solutions with Veritiv.

Packaging professionals too often address issues with breakage, damage, and loss (BD&L) by increasing the number of times a pallet is wrapped with film—temporarily addressing unit load failure, but driving up film usage and possibly labor costs. Utilizing different methods of palletized unit load testing can help uncover how primary and secondary packaging structures affect the overall containment performance.

Flexible packaging is a fast growing packaging trend, but is flexible or rigid packaging right for your product and channel strategies? According to Jim Wynne, Director of Food Solutions with Veritiv, the answer may be both.

Now that almost every consumer expects next-day delivery, even when they’re ordering a complete living room set and flat screen TV, most companies are trying to increase their e-commerce fulfillment velocity. In fact, a recent FLEXE survey revealed that 56% of consumers now expect one- to two-day shipping from all businesses.¹

So, with e-commerce moving toward a next-day model, how do you increase your fulfillment velocity to meet ever-increasing consumer demands? Here are three ways to get products in the hands of consumers more quickly and efficiently:

Did you know 66% of consumers believe the packaging of their shipment shows how much the retailer cares about them and their order? “The unboxing video trend shows that today’s consumers value experiences as much as the product, making the unboxing experience more important than ever,” says Jim Ollmann, Director, Packaging Design and Engineering Solutions with Veritiv.