Materials for packaging

1. Purpose of Packaging

Customers are usually not buying a product for its packaging but for the content. However, they expect the food they are buying to reach them in an hygienic, uncontaminated, safe to consume state, with an unaltered taste and color and aesthetic optics. Consumers also expect the packaging to allow for easy, safe, and convenient handling of the product as well as an adequate amount of information on the product.

Therefore, when choosing on the right packaging material for your product, you need to look out for a material that provides a sufficient barrier against microbial or other contamination, is hygienic, provides protection from light or heat where necessary, keeps the product safe during transport and is also attractive to the customer.

However, unless suitable for reuse or recycling, packaging material is usually discarded once the product is consumed. It is single-use by nature. When choosing the packaging material factors like its environmental impact, cost and volume or weight (which contribute to transport cost), also need to be considered.

You can find a description of different plastic packaging types here.