Is packaging necessary and why do we need packaging? Is packaging sustainable?
Packaging has many forms. You can have boxes. You can have very complicated labels and you can have bags etc. When we’re talking about generic packaging, the very first packaging that we can imagine when humans used to transport stuff from one place to another. You can think about baskets and that is packaging. So, you have a thought which its function is to transport.
The very big transformation of the packaging world happened in the last century. Consumer products needed to give information. Laws were enforced, so the work completely changed. Consumers need to understand what kind of product they are purchasing. They need to understand your brand and what you’re trying to give to them compared to your competitors.
Is all of this packaging really necessary?
From a very linear point of view, you can understand that a hundred years ago, the milkman didn’t have plastic, so there were no bottles of plastics in shops. You only had a glass bottle and you gave them to the milkman. He filled them and then you got your milk. You clean them and you reuse them. That was very sustainable. Is packaging really changing the world for the worse? The answer is NO. The thing is we are expanding, so we need to put everything in balance. Compared to the 60s, we have more than two times the actual population. An increase of the middle-class people are purchasing more products. The countryside is much emptier because there are more people in the cities where getting food is actually easier, but people have no time anymore. People need to go to the supermarket or purchase online products which creates the need of transport and the need of information which is delegated between many different intermediaries. When there was the milkman, you interfaced directly with them. There were less rules, so you could probably get some pretty high-quality milk without any labels telling you what kind of product was inside. Nowadays, most of products come from the assembly line, the packaging of products information is for our better health. Packaging also is helpful to globalization which made possible that you could get cheaper and better products that come from the other side of the world.
Is this sustainable?
Yes, we are getting better at making packaging that is more renewable and compostable. You’ve seen it probably in the supermarket. You can see compostable bags instead of plastic bags. Many things are happening in the world of plastic. I agree that plastic itself like straws, that kind of disposable items had no point of existing but I think plastic is not going to leave us any time soon. There are many products that can be only transported and sealed inside of plastic and there’s no material available right now that can actually substitute the use of plastic. The thing is the same as paper, the same as metal and the same as any other material which is limited on earth. We need to balance what we’re wasting and how we are reusing it. I think that better systems need to be applied to make the world go in the right direction. Packaging is necessary because we are going to expand even more even if you don’t like the idea of it. We are doing some great steps but many more need to be taken before we can truly say our expansion is safe and packaging is sustainable. We are always trying to invest time and money into finding out about new kinds of materials which are more recyclable and healthier for the planet. Many other kinds of materials that are out there can actually make a huge impact on the world. For example, in Finland there are companies producing some plastics look like polypropylene, but the material is not coming from carbon fossils or oil. It is actually coming from the resin of the pines of the evergreen trees. Those materials are still a bit more expensive than plastic, but as soon as the prices come close, we can really switch and come to a new level.
There is another important reason that packaging is necessary, especially for companies.
We need to sell our products through local shop or e-commerce’s. The best representative of the product is product itself, in the other word, is the packaging of your product. Think about it, you place your brand on top of the packaging when a customer sees your product on a shelf. Maybe he is not willing to buy it yet, but he sees it. He starts communicating with your company and when he buys it, he’s got it in the kitchen on the table where other people are seeing it. They’re going to talk about it. Packaging is a very important branding tool and the interesting part is that compared to other kinds of medias, packaging is one of the cheapest way even if you try even if you’re trying to do a luxurious kind of packaging. Compared to the actual cost of producing the product or selling and transporting it into other markets, packaging can actually be cheaper.
Packaging is always a great investment especially if you’re mindful of its effectiveness. You can be very creative with packaging and there are many ways. Your packaging is one of the first reasons why customers decide to buy your products the very first time they see it.
Want more information about packaging, please check Samspackaging.com. We are happy to share with you all the knowledge about packaging.
