4 Design Tips To Boost Your Food Packaging & Why It Is Vital
Delivery services have improved over the years, with food deliveries being one of the most crucial aspects of modern civilisation. Every single one of us has days when we want our food delivered right to our doorstep.
And with the rising need for such convenience, many F&B businesses are ready to serve that need. The designs of your food packaging can make or break your customers’ eating experience. In this article, we will take a closer look into the importance of food packaging designs and how you can achieve better designs that will take the dining experience to the next level.
The importance of food packaging
From keeping cold sushi from arriving warm to keeping hot soup from arriving cold, a lacklustre of poorly designed food packaging can make the meal unappetising. Food packaging plays a crucial role in fulfilling several key purposes.
Firstly, it protects your food from external contamination. Secondly, it ensures that your food is delivered to your customers at the intended temperature for consumption. Lastly, it is a tactile brand ambassador that your customers interact with.
Your food packaging is the connection between your business and your customers. It contains your delicious offering! Hence, that is half the fight won there!
The thing about packaging, whether for food or other products, is that attractive packaging design encourages consumers to make instant choices, bypassing any afterthought and leaving the consumer with a feeling of satisfaction.
With that being said, your food packaging has a more significant impact than you expect. Hence, do not miss out on the opportunity to deliver a unique customer and dining experience as well as foster a closer bond between your brand and your customers.
Here are four design tips to help you achieve this.
1. Choose the right packaging material
Choosing the right packaging material is the first step to achieving a successful food packaging design.
There are several varieties of materials common in today’s food packaging market, such as Styrofoam, plastic, paperboard cartons, corrugated boxes, and cardboard. Knowing each of its strengths and weaknesses is key to helping you determine its suitability for your business. For example:
Cardboard is easy to print on and biodegradable. However, wet foods can cause them to turn mushy, and it is not ideal for maintaining hot temperatures.
Plastic prevents leakage and is sturdy. However, most plastics are non-biodegradable, and some plastics may result in toxic materials leaching into your food.
Styrofoam is ideal for maintaining hot and cold food. However, it is not environmentally friendly. In fact, styrofoam is more toxic and non-environmentally friendly as compared to plastic.
In recent years, with the growing concerns of our planet, there has been an increased look into biodegradability and sustainability. As a result, many food packaging providers are coming up with sustainable food packaging and utensils, such as biodegradable plastic plates, forks, and spoons – more about those later.
Some questions you may want to ask yourself when choosing the right packaging material include:
What are your F&B business’s needs?
How far does your food need to travel before the order reaches your customer?
How long your food might remain in its packaging before it is consumed?
Is your food hot or cold?
What type of food do you serve?
2. Keep your packaging sustainable
Most food packaging is meant to be used only once. With most consumers growing in awareness towards the increasing impact that disposable food packaging has not only on the global environment but also the global economy, F&B businesses need to be aware of it too – lest your non-environmentally-friendly ways might alienate your customers.
Prioritising biodegradable, reusable, or recyclable packaging materials is a significant step towards running an environmentally-conscious, ethical business. Product line, such as EcoVue, SKP’s revolutionary line of sustainable, biodegradable, and eco-friendly food packaging options, is a great example.
Using the latest green technology, BioTransformation, every EcoVue product is 100% biodegradable, breaking down only into organic elements, such as water, biomass, and natural gases, which are then reabsorbed back into our environment.
Not only that, but its manufacturing process is also sustainable and eco-friendly, as every manufacturing facility is powered by solar energy. Hence, EcoVue products such as eco-friendly disposable cups and biodegradable utensils are all worth considering.
3. Brand your packaging to raise awareness
Once you have picked the right packaging material, hopefully with the intention of it being sustainable and environmentally friendly, you can begin branding your packaging.
Your food packaging will interact with your customers. A poorly designed and poorly branded packaging is a significant miss. Packaging is the physical representation of the brand’s identity and personality. It can help to attract a customer’s attention to the brand in a highly saturated market, allowing it to stand out from the competition.
Your custom packaging design opens the opportunity to create a long-lasting bond between every purchasing customer and your brand. People enjoy getting presents and simplicity. Food delivery services offer both. Hence, your food packaging should evoke those emotions.
Have you ever seen someone holding a KOI cup and immediately craved a cup of bubble tea? That is how crucial your food packaging design is. So, put your brand on your food packaging and make it crisp and visible. Ensure that your business name is readable and your logo is distinct.
4. Use your packaging design to communicate
Your food packaging does more than just tell your customers where the food’s origin is. It can also be used to communicate what you want your customers to know. Remember that your food packaging is an extension of your business. Hence, the conveyed message should be aligned with your brand value, promise, and identity.
Once you have decided on the message, the process of designing unique food packaging that offers a unique dining experience and setting your brand apart from others becomes easier.
Conclusion
The food you serve should be the priority, but your food packaging should not be an afterthought. Make packaging decisions that will serve its function optimally. Select packaging that not only ensures that your food tastes and looks as amazing as when it is cooked but also enhances your customer’s dining experience and interaction with your brand.
Here at SKP, we not only offer quality and affordable sustainable food packaging. We also offer custom printing and advertising solutions that will elevate your brand to the next level. Contact us today to inquire more about our holistic range of services!