Can food packaging waste cause irreversible devastation to the environment that we live in and share?
Surely! This is going to happen. You will agree that people in the US are the most overfed people in the world. US citizens including some other developed nations are environmentally conscious. We have the resources and funds to fight against environmental damage from food packag recycling and other advanced means. You may think that I dispose my food packaging waste products and I am healthy and green. You may be doing a favor to the mother earth. You may be the greenest person on the planet. But, what about the huge majority of people.
People who lack basic education.
People who struggle to eat and survive. People who lack resources. People who are environmentally unaware. Believe it or not, disposal of food packaging is a huge issue. It is a matter that threatens the very existence of man. The people belonging to poor nations barely have any laws or regulations against waste disposals. We are moving in a bus at full speed on a path that leads to destruction. It is people like us the most overfed, over sheltered and over clothed that have to ring a bell. Take action before it’s too late.
It is our responsibility that we have to compel nations that need help.
The packaging waste of one-time used food has reached every corner of the World. The manufacturers have created this mess but, let’s face it -- we are all in it together. If you visit Thailand, the old fishermen will tell you that they used to wrap their food banana leaves that they used to toss into the sea. It was a biodegradable waste and was food to marine life. Everyone was happy! Over the past few decades, the rapid industrial growth introduced new materials in the form of plastics, polyethylene and other polymers that have created this huge problem of coastline littered with garbage, in short it is an environmental disaster. Now let us come back to the developed world, UK produces 170 million tons of waste every year, and most of it is thrown away food packaging.
If you are a green person living in the UK, you will find that the country’s landfills are having a tuff time coping with its wastes. It is your chance to be active.
The UK has revolutionary products for food packaging. However, some of it is poisonous, and others never degrade. It takes 450 years to break down a food packaging made out of plastic. You might find this intriguing that there are certain kinds of “innovative” materials that are recyclable but it does not biodegrade. Only a third of the plastic goes through recycling. You need to keep this in mind the next time you drink soda out of a plastic bottle. It is even more intriguing that recycling makes just a tiny piece of the complete puzzle. The developed countries have been aware of the waste problem caused by food packages since 1960.
The direct and indirect impacts of food packaging, as you may know, are soil degradation, water pollution and reduction in Earth’s resources such as forests, solid waste pollution, and toxic chemical contamination.
Is Food Packaging Destroying Your and your Children’s Health? In the previous argument, we discussed that food packaging is destroying the world, but the real destruction does not end here, far away from your home on landfills. It may be killing you and your children. We take it for granted that we make some encounters with food packaging every day consisting of all different types of materials. Eating cereals and corn flakes in the morning from paperboard boxes with milk from cardboard. We have plastic and glass bottles from fruit juices to energy drinks. We feverishly eat delicious hamburgers and sandwiches in polystyrene packages. Eating tuna fish from a tin can for dinner. We have numerous different kinds of food packaging all around us.
It is nice to grab good food eat on the move but have you ever consider that how the packaging material is affecting the food inside it. The same food that we are eating and giving to our kids. You may be conscientious and buy fresh food and recycle but have you ever wondered that how much the food package waste is ending up in the landfills and contaminating the environment.
This is also very important for you to know that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is the US government entity that regulates the law that dictates food packaging material that comes in contact with the food during processing, manufacture, packaging, and transportation. An interesting point to know about food package material is that different types of materials offer different advantages. The glass preserves the taste well, and it is chemically not reactive and inert. Conclusively, it does not affect the food inside it which makes it a top choice and environmentally safe. When it comes to the economy, the cost-effectiveness of cardboard food packaging or paper and paperboard is unparalleled in its manufacturing with ease in printing on it. The typical paperboard that you order your lunch in also keeps the package lightweight saving on fuel and in turn transportation cost.
Metallic packaging in the form of steel and aluminum can be used with adoptable shape, and it is very hard for the items held inside it to penetrate its surface which keeps your food well protected. Metallic food packaging is also one of the most environmentally friendly product in the market.
However, it is worth mentioning that many researchers assign the crippling Alzheimer’s disease with the use of Aluminum for food confinement and cookery. Plastics are the darlings of the packaging industry. Plastics have a high molding potential in limitless shapes. They are lightweight, cost-effective, easily sealable and vigorous enough to carry your food. When you take a closer look at plastics and its relationship with food, you will feel content to hear that being a polymer plastic molecules are very big and cannot penetrate into your food like tomatoes and other veggies, when you wrap them with cling wrappers. One a different note, plastic may contain other chemicals may have molecules that are small enough to seep into your food causing contamination. These chemicals may be the ones that are added during its manufacturing process to obtain some of its mechanical properties.
The plastic itself can break down into monomers under certain conditions, it rare but it can happen. The two types of plastics that you should watch out for are the following.
Polycarbonate: This type of plastic is used to create food containers and bottles. It can release a health-damaging chemical known as Bisphenol (BPA). PVC: This hard and rigid plastic has usage in creating many products that come in contact with food such as packing materials like bottles, seals for screw cap jars, cling wraps. Chemicals called plasticizers are added to PVC to make soft and flexible. The plasticizer can make as much as 40% of PVC plastic. Some other chemical compounds are added to PVC to make it useful for food packaging. Recent research raises serious doubts about the safety of these compounds. Being a health-conscious consumer memorize the names of these plastics and watch out for them when the next time you go shopping for stuff that may have plastic packaging.
Food Packaging History
The confinement of food can be traced back to ages. The man used containers that had origins in nature. Things like leaves, hollow logs, animal skin and bones, dried gourds till baskets and pottery came into the scene. Chinese are known to wrap food in treated tree bark and other primitive types of paper materials. If you read the European history, you will find that Napoleon Bonaparte used first mass produced and preserved metallic can food to feed his troops on war expeditions to far-reaching territories. The discovery of Plastics in the 18th century enabled it to be adopted for its use in food packaging. The origin of knowledge for food packaging evolved around that time. Today food products are wrapped in multiple layers of packing before they get from the place of their manufacture to your dining table.
Today the scientists are suspecting that the packaging protection of food from bacterial contamination leads to several other problems.
Why do we Need Food Packaging? Packaging and food go hand in hand. You will never buy food that is not well protected. Even the unprocessed food or the food that goes through minimum processing before it ends on your dinner table like fruit and vegetables require protection. Protection of food and its safety is paramount when it transports to markets where you buy them. It does not require much common sense to figure out that agricultural products like fruits reach your dinner table has to be protected in packaging from wear and tear along with external pressures and vibration of transport vehicles. Similarly, there are a vast number of other reasons behind the fact that as consumers we are addicted to packaged goods, and food tops that list.
The modern industrial age pampers us so much that we cannot drink or eat anything that is being sold out in the open unprotected from the elements of nature.
The food that is laid out open without any covering or packaging provides a good raving for pests like flies and mosquitos. For your information, this does happen in poor and developing countries. Uneducated people do buy food off the street that is unprotected and exposed to pests severely risking their health and hygiene. Advanced methods for food protection like tamper protection casing and packaging also protect us from fraudulent behavior protecting food quality. The packaging of food also creates brand awareness that we get hooked to and buy or at least drool over. We love it, and the food companies love it, everyone is happy! Addition benefits may include protection from external environmental elements such and light, gas, temperature and humidity that may destroy, contaminate or make the food to lose its nutritional value also force consumers like you and me to buy packaged food.
Food Packaging Recycling Limits
Some packages are recyclable indefinitely other may be recycled for two or three times. Have a look at the following list to find out which materials are more environmentally friendly.
Challenges Faced to Cope Food Packaging Problems
Emerging economies like China require much vigilance to overcome this problem that threatens the planets echo-system. You may be astonished to hear that 60% of food packaging has compromised safety when it comes to food products in China alone. From plastic bags, plastic bottles and plastic barrels and food packaging comprises of compromised safety. Some packaging materials containing toxins end up into food packaging after non-regulated processes. Beyond that, the food packages recovery rate is unsatisfactory low. The food packaging standardization processes are prolonged in China, this adds to the problem. It is quite obvious that the food packaging does create a barrier aginst bacterial infection, but another advantage is that food packaging extends the shelf life of the food products. This helps wider distribution of food and reduces food waste.
Even in a country like the USA where the food packaging technology is at its peak, food waste is a huge problem. According to an estimate by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) around 34 million tons of food was thrown away in 2010.
Utilizing the food packaging to reduce one waste problem creates another waste problem, you may find it ironical, but it is a fact that 14% of municipal solid waste generated in the United states came from thrown away food. May be you cannot become a superhero to save the world, but you have your contribution to make. First and foremost is your health and the health of the ones whom your care about. Some best practices can help you avoid any serious health hazards to your health and the health of your family, friends and loved ones.
Our responsibilities towards ourselves and others are shared. We need to take care of ourselves and others to hand over a better world to generations that will succeed us. As the world is getting smaller and smaller and turning into a global village by the advancements in communication technologies and the Internet, we must not forget we can only survive when we work together for our own sake and the sake of others.
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There are two types of designing that revolve around food Packaging.
The design factor of a food product or service should not be overseen by a company in the food business. It should be understood that the design of the food packaging requires great ideas to be adopted. The design aspect and great design ideas are proven to boost sales, develop brands and convey the messages to your audience and customers in a way that appeals and attract them.
There are several ways you can hire or outsource a designer to create food packages that your customers adore and buy. The food package design ideas are generated as a result of package design strategy.
There are several different factors which can be targeted to come up with a design plan. Depending upon your product you can target age groups of your customers. Let's say you are targeting a food item like candy for the young children and kids market segment. Then you seek what this age group is interested. Let’s suppose that our product is candy. The designer comes up with ideas to creates relationships between the interest of kids, the product, in this case, it is candy. We know that most children enjoy to be around and play with cut domestic animals and pets. You can create a package in the form of a cardboard puppy and fill it with candy. The package can be semi-transparent, and the candies would be visible in let’s say in the belly of the puppy so, the package becomes even more attractive.
This strategy is extremely effective and if your product is premature enough, you can you can creatively name the product that is the name of a famous pet or something similar.
The strategy is simple forming relationships between the different aspect of the product or service according to the aggregative mindset of the buy is a sure shot to make the product an instant success. We can color the wrapper of the candies to be black and put them inside a white cardboard package in the form of a puppy with transparent holes in which you can see the candies in this white puppy shape box. This way the candies give the illusion of black checkers spots on the puppy' s cardboard boy. We can call our brand "Checkers." This product has the potential to make an instant hit when you position and target it to the kids who love to eat candies. The quality and taste of the sweets should not be ignored. In the world of marketing, the focus on the appearance of the product comes first, and the focus on the quality of taste or function follows which is no less important.
A tip of general advice is that always hire or work with a designer that can build relationships within objects to come up with a product or service design.
This sort of creative packaging for food is an instant hit in which the stuff you are buying is partially visible in a very creative way to make people open their wallets and buy your products and services. Some other ideas for food packaging also create links and relationship between the food products and the packaging. For example, banana juice packages can have the color and shape similar to a banana and orange juice packaging can have a shape of orange slices. Other design ideas are also popular these days such as images of a superhero on a milk package holding a straw in his mouth would instantly appeal many Marvel fans. In the domain of food services, when the food is cooked packaged for delivery or served in a restaurant the food can be creatively branded in all its steps. Just take a look at the most successful food chain franchises like McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and others. You will witness that packaging ideas sprout from all sides, provide design relationships that trigger in your mind and you shell out money from your wallet every time you are hungry.
Christmas is so close that I can feel the cold touch of snowflakes on my cheeks and I can hear the jingle bells ringing afar.
However: We still have time to get high quality custom gable boxes because good packaging companies do not take more than 4 biz days to deliver one’s packaging. This means that you have time to think, prune, refine and get the sort of packaging that you want to use and sell your products on this Christmas Eve.
In this blog post, I am going to show you how we can customize the wholesale gable boxes for our gains and get the maximum ROI from our Christmas packaging.
Let us see: 1. Christmas Symbols Well, before I move towards the general effects that we can add to simple gable boxes, we first have to see how the Christmas symbols boost the festivity of simple and plain gable boxes, and turn them into killer devices of sales and branding. All you have to do, is ask your packaging company to add the Xmas symbols to your packaging. I am talking about obvious and sure shot Christmas signs such as Christmas tree, Jingle bells, Santa Clause and a lot of others. Also: Make sure that they do the double-sided printing. What I mean to say is that in order to increase the overall impact and the unboxing impact, you must get some symbols printed inside as well. This depends on how you want to do it.
If you asked me, I would say that I will have the whole snowflakes and Xmas tree thing on outside and inside the box there will be one big, red Santa Clause.
2. Add Some Love Speaking of unboxing experience, I must mention that it is not something that you need to get the first client, mug him and forget him, but it is what you need to get the first client, have him encapsulated in a pleasant surprise and make him a repeat customer. How to do so? Here is how you customize your wholesale gable boxes and turn them into awesome unboxing experiences.
Add some embellishments inside the boxes. Also, you can use the velvet to give the inside wrapping of the box, a very lush and luxurious touch. Use this tactic in case your product is jewelry, luxury or make up item.
3. Add Nature to Your Gable Packaging Christmas is an event to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ; baby Jesus is one of the most important symbols of Christmas. So is the tree, snowflakes and holly. All of these symbols have one thing in common: nature. They are objects of nature, so in order to celebrate your Christmas sales, make sure that you add some objects of nature to the Christmas gable boxes that you get from your packaging company. This will boost the unboxing experience and turn your one time buyers into repeat customers. Remember, when Starbucks learned its lesson and decided to go back to the Christmas themed packaging in a Christmas season, it got back its valued repeat customers. You do not have to get back any deserters; all you have to do is to attract new and existing customers.
Try these tricks and hacks to get maximum ROI from your Xmas ready personalized Gable boxes and let us know how these tips helped you.
You’d never doubt the fact that having high quality pie boxes is the best business tactic to beat your competitors with poor quality of packaging.
However it takes time to understand as to how to decorate your boxes in order to make them irresistible. Get this: Every pie business out there invests in the design and printing of their product’s packaging, and beating them is not a piece of cake. Well, this makes your job difficult, doesn’t it? The only reason of getting aesthetically rich mini pie boxes is because you want to ace the game. If your packaging is not out of the box, the customization is just a waste of funds.
So what to do?
I tell you what to do; it is useless to go to a certain packaging company, hoping that they would do something special for you, while they have made numberless pie boxes for other pie bakers. They will not make a difference unless you guide them and help them decorate your boxes the way you want. So where is the distinction that you crave to make? If you see that the packaging companies are giving the same type of boxes to every pie business, then there is no point in getting expensive and personalized boxes from these companies. However: If you decide to put some effort into your pie packaging, you might get desired results. Here are some customization and decorative features that you may consider, in order to make your packaging company deliver something different than usual 9 inches pie boxes.
Floral Patterns – Food has its own aroma and its own romance; pies are not an exemption. Food and flowers are closely linked with love and passion, so let us try some floral patterns on the packaging of our pies. They look awesome and they add an overall elegance and beauty to your packaging. People appreciate beautiful packaging; you must give it a try.
Ribbons – Ribbons are most important among embellishments. Without them one cannot imagine of getting a gift wrapped. That’s right; this is what they do. They turn a usual box into a gift box. This is what you need to do. Best practice is to get one or two ribbons diagonally over your boxes, but if you cannot afford this expense, you can ask your packaging company to print two ribbons on your boxes.
Lace – After ribbons, laces are perhaps the most commonly used embellishments. Most of the times women use it on their dresses, but they are not specific to dresses. You can get the laces all over your wholesale pie boxes or make a frill on the edges of your boxes. Choice is yours, but laces are known to make a simple item look entirely different.
Beads and Motifs – Yes, these are expensive embellishments and you might not want to go for it, since your packaging is already an expensive one because of all the customizations that you made to it. However, if you can afford a little expense for a bigger impact, add one or few beads or motifs to your boxes and they will prove their worth.
Remember: The point is not to go mad with these customizations just in order to get a certain status among the ranks of pie businesses. The point is to decorate your packaging in a way that it becomes prominent and ready to fly off the shelves as soon as a customer looks at it.
Try these effects and see how your pie business grows off the charts.
Alright:
If at this time in the history of mankind, you are thinking of getting into the lipstick business, it’s a bad idea. Why do I call it a bad idea? It is because there are already so many companies in the field with highly customized and branded lipstick containers styles and their packaging suitable to their styles. In short, you cannot make an impact, unless your lipstick packaging is ahead of its age and better than your competitors. Let me make it easier for you! If there are 100 companies with black and yellow lipstick containers, you cannot succeed with another black and yellow lipstick container! You have to come up with something that all of them or most of them lack.
This is why I wrote this blog post; the purpose of this blog post is to discuss the design, approach and style of contemporary lipstick brands and how they manage to win the hearts and minds of the target customers.
Let us get involved: 1. The List of Companies That Aced the Art of Lipstick Packaging So, just to help you with motivation and inspiration, I have compiled a list of companies that simply aced the art of lipstick boxes for sale and gave us awesome lipstick containers to be inspired from. Let us have a look:
2. The Best Lipstick Packaging Practices Alright, now let us talk about the best lipstick packaging practices that may prove to be beneficial for your lipstick business.
Food is for our taste buds, but those folks at restaurants and hotels pay a lot of attention to decorating it and presenting it in the most pleasing manner. Why? It is because they know that presentation matters a lot. No one loves a food that looks bad. Same goes with lipsticks. Lest we forget, just like food, lipstick also belongs on lips. Carolina Braina from Makeup & Beauty Blog knows this secret and she believes that overall experience matters.
Now:
Overall experience does not mean oval shape lipsticks or black lipstick vessels; you have to know that simplistic design can sometimes do wonders that highly complex designing marvels cannot.
It turns out the a packaging that leans towards the green is a better packaging which is not only commended by the environmentalists, but now the women who use lipsticks and other makeup items also tend to care for the environment-related issues.
This means that whether you go for gold color lipstick container or a studded black one, you have to go for the eco-friendly packaging if you want to establish a good reputation among your target customers.
Click on this Video to know more about Lipstick packaging best practices.
Smart Packaging is one of the top trends in recent consumer market destined to revolutionize the retail sector of the consumer market. The more you learn this rising technology, the more you will comprehend its functionality and role the more you will understand its impact on your current and future life. Its actual impact and application may not be entirely predicted but as a packaging technology effect will translate to all the product packaging that we use in our daily whether it is customize food packaging or gift packaging this technology seems eminent to enter our lives. However, there are a few hurdles that are resisting it to become mainstream, but there is an ample collection of packaging experts that seem optimistic of its penetration into the world markets Understanding Smart Packaging Smart Packaging can be divided into two types regarding their functionality:
Both of them is explained in following. Active Packaging Active Packaging augments functionality, while Intelligent Packaging can facilitate communication of the packaged content’s status. It comprises of an amalgamation of specialized and advanced materials and applications of science and technology. Active Packaging consists of ‘sensing' the packaging environment and its ‘manipulation,' after gathering data to hold better-hold the microbiological quality of the contents of the package with the intention to keep the content useful after a prolonged period to maximize the shelf life of the product. Its important applications are in products that come in food packaging. Intelligent Packaging Intelligent Packaging senses changes in the environment of a package, gather the information and communicates or signals information about the change to an entity. It does not interact with the environment to modify it. The intelligent packaging can communicate the following information to a preprogrammed entity:
Size of the Smart Packaging Industry Estimations differ for the size of this industry. Ernst and Young report that the Global Consumer Packaging Market is valued at four hundred billion US dollars to five hundred billion dollars with the inclusion of industrial end products. The Smart Packaging segment is anticipated to touch a mark somewhere near $40 billion by the year 2020. Adding all the anti-counterfeit, security and tamper evidence features (such as holograms, QR codes) it gets extremely huge, somewhere as high as $15 billion just for pharma industry alone by the year 2020. The industry is expected to grow at a yearly rate of 5 to 8 percent through 2020. These estimates hold provided that there are no game-changing breakthroughs in this emerging technology. The Function of Smart Packaging Design Consider the following graphical figure; it explains the enhanced functionality of the smart packaging. Packaging has four fundamental functions: Protection, Communication, Containment and Convenience (of the goods that it holds). Active and Intelligent Packaging enhances the protection and communication functions, respectively. In the case of Active Packaging, the packaging itself has been enhanced to improve functionality. In the case of Intelligent Packaging, a meat producer may use Smart Packaging to provide a special message that the contents are past the expiration date. The packaging label may change color to alert the consumer. The field of Intelligent Packaging is progressing fast as new technologies are being developed to further facilitate communication with consumers and other entities deemed necessary. The Motivation Behind Smart Packaging
Smart Packaging is much more than just a colored labeling of food items. Its implications are enormous regarding the potential savings to companies and consumers along with huge reductions in food waste. The key motivations forces behind Smart Packaging: Safety. In the food and pharmaceutical industry, safety is sprouted big decisions. The financial threats for these industries are expensive, dangerous and deadly having the capability to kill a brand with years of expenditures and efforts in creation and development. For these companies, Smart Packaging is likely to become an addition to an insurance policy. Brand protection. For companies suffering from hits on the grey and black market, Smart Packaging can assist in the verification of the authenticity of products. Shelf life. In addition to safety issues, food spoilage is a huge problem. Smart Packaging is expected to extend the shelf life of a food product, the cost savings by controlling the waste can be enormous in this respect. Legislation. Strict rules and regulations on food and pharmaceuticals are moving the industry to seek new and innovative ways to help products stay in compliance with the legislations that set food expiry standards. Smart Packaging is geared towards changing the basic fabric of packages of everyday products that we use in our day to day lives. This is promising new technology that can revolutionize product packaging and the way we perceive brand new products. Alright, enough is enough. We’re done with mere speculations, useless calculations, consultations and everything. Let us figure out for sure whether we need or we do not need the custom boxes. Today, I am not going to talk about something which is not measurable. Today it is not about the far fetched benefits of custom packaging and today we will learn for sure whether your business depends on custom boxes or not. Let us have a look at the 5 telltale signs that prove that you need custom boxes. If you see any of these signs in your everyday business practices, then you definitely need custom packaging design.
2. Reduced Turnover If your business turnover is not as expected and you are barely meeting the expenses, it is a sure sign that you need custom packaging. Why? Because custom boxes come at the cost of boxes made to preserve and protect the products, but they do something extra and that too at no extra cost; they help you reach out to prospects, establish a brand image, make it easy for the customers to refer to your brand and make it easy for you to sell more. 3. Big Advertisement Budget Many companies end up on winding up the business and bearing lots of losses and debts. This happens because of the non-productive expenses. Anything that does not pay you back is non-productive expense. This means the expenses incurred on office, staff, furniture and other equipment as well as advertisement. A lot of companies spend a fortune on marketing budget, to market your product or brand promotion you can also go for brand management software official website which you can save or reduce by simply getting the service. Simplelogix is the best marketing device and they help you reach out to your customers in the most stylish, useful and easy way: that too without any extra costs. 4. Fragile Product Apart from branding-related aspects, custom boxes are mainly used to preserve and protect the products. Some products are of a fragile nature. For example, cell phones, products made of glass or such other products that have a risk of getting damaged. If you are into a business that sells fragile products, you definitely need custom boxes to keep the products intact and safe. 5. Size Size matters in case of packaging. Premade boxes are only available in default sizes. Apart from those sizes you cannot get boxes for shipping. This means that if you need a box for an item with specific sizing, you will either get an unnecessarily big premade box or pay more for a big box, or you will have to opt custom packaging option. Not only a big premade box will be costly, but shipping companies will also charge more for a big box. So, these were a few signs that prove that you need custom Boxes solutions that Packagingblue.com provides to their customers.
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