Packaging in Marketing, Food Safety, Environment
Over the last decade, the subject of sustainability has become a major concern for both businesses and consumers. Today’s political agenda includes raising understanding of the social, institutional, and economic dimensions of the country’s environmental impact. To ensure that businesses boost their efforts to lessen the negative environmental impact of conventional plastic packaging, a wide range of measures must be adopted. Manufacturing sustainability strategies focus on the recovery and reduction of packaging materials and waste. It must be done in tandem with the reuse and recycling of discarded garbage, as well as the reduction of hazardous packaging components. Because inappropriate packaging practices for perishable products endanger human health and the environment, as well as cost-efficiency and brand message, producers and marketers must consider a variety of safety, environmental, and health problems when establishing a package design.
Role of Packaging in Marketing
Consumer and market developments are emphasizing the relevance of packaging in communicating brand messaging (Underwood & Klein, 2002). The focus is on lowering advertising expenses so that more money may be spent on trade and sales promotion, as well as building brand awareness (Underwood & Klein, 2002). Over the last few decades, the importance of packaging as a marketing tool has grown in the industry (Underwood & Klein, 2002). During the same time span, however, academic attention to packaging was essentially non-existent and only increased in the previous decade (Underwood & Klein, 2002).
An effective package strategy communicates to the customer practical, aesthetic, and symbolic values, resulting in increased product demand and positive brand perception (Underwood & Klein, 2002). Modern consumers choose packaging materials that are environmentally friendly or even reusable. Green packaging is a tool for establishing long-term relationships with clients by stressing sustainability and “green conscience,” effectively turning environmental concerns into a selling point (Underwood & Klein, 2002). According to Plastech’s president, Edward Gustafson, “the time when people didn’t pay much attention to sustainability and thought of it as just a “window decoration” has long passed” (Underwood & Klein, 2002). Producers must now put reusability, bio-based resins, and packaging fillings at the forefront of their concerns.
Functional Properties of Packaging
Adopting suitable packaging strategies can have a substantial impact on an organization’s production process. Packaging’s main responsibilities are to protect items from deterioration and external effects, as well as to provide crucial nutritional and marketing information (Marsh, 2007). It enables producers to move their products from the point of production to the point of consumption while preserving the nutritional content and wholesomeness of the food (Marsh, 2007).
Packaging acts as a barrier to the environment’s chemical, biological, and physical impacts. It protects products from chemical impacts by reducing their exposure to gases, moisture, and light. Biological protection prevents microorganism access to the product and creates an impermeable barrier to odor transfer while preserving the package’s internal state (Marsh, 2007). The physical closure of the package acts as a barrier against mechanical damage and vibration, which are particularly dangerous during food transit (Marsh, 2007). Because of the need to improve the shelf life of foods, product packaging is growing at a rate of 13% each year (Markarian, 2014). By improving product travel safety and conserving their initial qualities, an effective packaging approach has a considerable impact on product processing (Marsh, 2007).
The use of modern packaging materials extends the shelf life of food in terms of texture, color, net weight loss, and marketability, among other qualitative features (Sahoo, Bal, Pal, & Sahoo, 2014). According to a study done by the Department of Agricultural Processing and Food Engineering, bell pepper can be maintained with the MAP packaging approach for up to 20 days, which is five times longer than ambient circumstances (Sahoo, Bal, Pal, & Sahoo, 2014). The use of various packaging strategies as well as proper storage conditions can considerably extend the shelf life of items.