5 Steps to Choose the Best Food Product Packaging

The importance of properly done food packaging is often underestimated. The decision may seem simple, but getting a food packaging design and material choice wrong can ruin a product launch. Poor design can make your product blend in with other products on the shelf, and the wrong material can lead to your granola bars going stale. Food packaging is a rapidly growing industry that is projecting a global revenue of USD 718.3 billion by the year 2034, with a growth of USD 272 billion between 2034 and 2026. With the growth of the industry, there is a wider selection of materials, more packaging options, and an increase in competition for the limited shelf space. So how do you navigate making a choice in packaging amid such overwhelming options? How do you choose the best packaging for food? With the right measured approach. From launching a new snack brand to refreshing a product line, it requires making decisions that manage the costs, protect the food, and attract the consumers. Out of everything, here is the criteria that matters most.

 

Consider Food Safety & Material Suitability First

Before thinking about your brand colors or how the product will look on the shelf, you should ask the most important question: will this packaging keep the food safe? Everything else comes second to food safety. Packaging that looks great but allows for the entry of moisture or chemicals to leach into the food is a bad investment, and is an even bigger liability.

Food Safety is a Must with Food-Grade Materials

Safety is a number one priority with food, and this means everything that will come into contact with the food must be food-grade certified. Materials that are suitable for contact with food include a form of polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), and PET, as well as some foil laminates. These materials can be used for a variety of applications spanning from spice blends to marinated, saucy, or oily snacks.

You must choose a suitable food contact material (FCM) for the product. For example, some metals cannot be used with tomato sauces because the sauce is acidic and the metal could cause the food to go bad. High-quality materials must be chosen for food that is high in fat and may choose the plastic because of the weight. Good packaging businesses, like anacottepackaging, will be happy to help you choose the best food-grade material and laminates to avoid making packaging changes many times.

The Importance of Barrier Properties and the Freshness of Food

Packaging is designed to protect food from oxygen, moisture, and light, and the longer food can last in packaging, the better barrier properties the packaging has. The shelf life of food can be extended more greatly by advanced, multi-layer films with a barrier of aluminum or EVOH than with a single-layer.

For example, a protein bar in standard poly film may be stale in 60 days, but if you switch to a high-quality bar with metalized laminate packaging, it could last for six months or more. The ability to stay fresh longer means that you waste less product and can distribute the product more widely. High-quality materials often come with high-quality packaging, and you should always ask for OTR and MVTR, as these specifications will help you to choose the best materials.

 

Create a Unique Brand Design for Consumer Goods Packaging

As a brand, first impressions matter—and, in many cases, packaging is all a prospective customer will see. Packaging has three essential functions that ensure the product stands out among competitors: trust, safety, and quality. Good custom brand design evokes an emotional and cognitive response that builds trust and compels a consumer to purchase the item.

How Design and Target Demographics Work Together

An artisanal jam and a protein powder used by gym-goers will have completely different styles for packaging design. It is surprising how many brands do not understand this basic premise and spend thousands on packaging that completely misses the mark.

Understand your intended consumer first and foremost. Design, in part, is a response to consumer behavior. A design that uses a lot of white space will feel clean and premium, while younger consumers will be attracted to packaging that uses vibrant colors and bold print.  The design should be cohesive with your consumer’s purchasing habits. It should feel right for the customer’s kitchen, and not out of place like something that came from another aisle.

 

Using Color Psychology and Typography in Food Retail

Different colors communicate different messages and have different connotations. Green is often used in food packaging to signal an item is natural or organic. Red is used to indicate an item is anything from food that is on sale to food that is ready to eat and is used to convey a sense of importance. Blue communicates a sense of trust and in marketing is often used to convey that a product is of high quality. Blue is reverse used in food items and is often absent from food packaging because of its suppressant qualities to the desire to eat. Typography plays an equally important role. Hand-lettered scripts convey an artisanal or small-batch product, while a clean sans-serif is often used to communicate a modern or efficient product.

Food retailers view their packaging as a menu and a billboard for their product. Every aspect of the design communicates the story of the food brand and is meant to entice customers from an arms length, which means good design can be the difference between winning brand loyalty or having your product be ignored on the shelf.

Roofing a Flexible vs Rigid package

Consider flexible packaging first. Rigid packages are jars, cans, and clamshells. These are more costly to produce, heavier to ship, and more expensive to hold space in a warehouse. However, they offer a more premium feel and protect their contents better. Rigid packages are still extremely popular, holding 59.74% of the 2025 foodservice packaging market.

Flexible packaging like pouches, sachets, and rollstock films are taking off because they are lighter, cheaper, and more customizable. Flexible formats like pouches allow small batch and seasonal brands to tie less capital to inventory because flexible formats have lower minimum order quantities and shorter lead times.

 

User Experience and Resealable Features

Think of how your customer uses the product. Resealable pouches are better for nuts. Messy out pouches are annoying. These are small details that matter.

Functionality of resealable zippers, notches, pouches, and hang holes packaging formats are small up front costs that yield great returns in customer satisfaction and loyalty. Always keep the use case in your prototyping: how does this pouch open, how does it pour, how does it store, and what setup will annoy the customer.

Production Costs vs. Sustainability

79.47 out of 100 U.S. consumers believe sustainability is worth a small increase in price, and 47% are willing to pay a 1-3% price increase for limited-edition, sustainably packaged, fresh produce. In 2023 the anticipated demand for sustainable food packaging solutions will produce a 7.44% annual increase in sales, with a total anticipated demand of $134.72 billion by 2034.

 

Eco Friendly Alternatives: Solutions that are either Compostable, Recyclable, or Both

Currently, for films, laminates, and pouches that are either fully compostable, recyclable, or both, a number of options are available, and several trade-offs are a part of each option; for example, fully compostable pouches are suitable for dry goods, but they may not be as suitable for wet products; fully recyclable mono-material PE pouches may have a lesser barrier property in comparison to more sophisticated multi-layer laminates.

As of today, the reality is that, from a functionality and performance angle, there is not one completely sustainable option that can be used to wholly replace conventional multi-layer films; however, the gap is closing. Because of this, it is important that you work with your suppliers and remain flexible, as there are a number of sustainable options that may not increase your costs substantially while also aiding in meeting the shelf life requirements for your products.

Reducing packaging weight is one of the easiest and more sustainable ways to also reduce costs. Flexible pouches can reduce packaging weight by 50% to 70% as compared to rigid packaging options. This directly translates to a lower carbon footprint and lower shipping costs.

The packaging itself also requires space and material. Assuming a slight improvement in this area, a 100,000 unit shipment with 5 grams less packaging would save 500 kilograms of packaging material in total. This improvement not only helps with sustainability, it also translates to better freight costs and less required space in your warehouse. You should also determine the specifics for your product; the savings are often surprising.

 

Follow Labeling and Legal Guidelines

This is the most common pitfall for brands when launching multiple markets. The regulations differ from one country to another, and can cause product recalls and bans or fines to be imposed.

 

Nutritional and Allergen Information Regulation

In the US, nutrition fact panels, ingredient lists, and allergen declarations have to follow a specific format as guided by the FDA. The regulations in the EU are even stricter. An example is the regulation on Packaging and Packaging Waste, which now prohibits the use of contact food packaging materials that contain PFAS above 25 ppb for any single PFAS compound.

If you are designing packaging that will be used for international markets, be compliant from the word go, rather than trying to make changes later when you have to constantly reprint regardless of whether you’ve used compliant or noncompliant ink. The cost of having to make changes after the packaging design is set is a sticky embarrassment. You are better off involving a consultant who can advise on regulatory issues, or better yet, work with a packaging supplier who understands regulatory requirements across multiple markets to make the packaging compliant.

 

Completing Prototypes and the Market Testing Process

You have made all the good decisions in terms of material, design, format, cost, and sustainability, and regulatory compliance. You can now test the market with a product and gain positive feedback, because you’ve done most of the things correctly.

You can order sample runs so you don’t have to jump into full production right away. A prototype you don’t have to fully pay for would be flexible packaging from Anacotte. Actual shoppers can evaluate your sample! Observe how are they packaging. Does it catch their attention when they look at the shelf? Is the packaging easy to open? With how fast can they identify what the product is?

Finding the perfect package for your food product is a task that has many steps. Each decision individually will determine how safe, appealing, functional, sustainable, and legally compliant your product is. There five steps. If you decide one is unnecessary, you’ll pay for it later, either through inventory that spoils, sales that are slow, or a recall that is costly. Each step is meant to be done with care. Test your product and don’t rush to scale. That way you can ensure your packaging is just as hardworking as the food it contains.

 

FAQ

1. What is the most important aspect of food packaging?

The first\; most important aspect it food safety. Brands must first confirm that their packaging uses food-safe materials and that the packaging provides adequate protection against moisture, oxygen, and light, as well as outside contamination. Only after food safety is assured can brands think about packaging design that is attractive for retail and incorporates their logo/branding.

2. What do barrier properties in food packaging do?

Barrier properties in food packaging maintain the food’s freshness and extend its shelf-life by blocking moisture, oxygen, and light. Improved barrier properties reduce spoilage, increase the flexibility of distribution, and decrease product wastage.

3. What is the impact of packaging design on sales of food products?

Packaging design influences the perception of trust, quality, and brand. Customers are affected by the product’s colors, type, design, etc. and the packaging may be the determining factor of whether the customer recognizes the product, understands it, and/or chooses to buy the product.

4. What packaging design features create a better customer experience?

Packaging design that incorporates features such as resealable zippers, easy tear notches, easy-pour openings, hang holes, and other practical pouch formats make using the packaging easier and improve customer experience.

5. Is the cost of sustainable food packaging higher?

Not necessarily, although it is true that some sustainable options may have higher shipping costs. In fact, many sustainable options can be designed to reduce packaging weight and enable the use of flexible packaging, which can decrease shipping costs.

6. Before a food brand can begin packaging and production, what legal considerations apply?

Before a food brand can begin production of packaging, they must confirm the requirements for nutrition facts, ingredient lists, allergens, materials that contact food, country requirements, and labeling rules.

7. What is the value of prototype testing prior to starting full-scale production?

Brands can identify and improve prototype designs prior to production. It allows them to assess the prototype’s packaging safety, aesthetics, functionality, user accessibility, and shelf visibility.

8. What is the ideal packaging solution for food products?

An ideal food packaging solution is subjective. Considerations should be given to perishability, formulated ingredients, intended customers, storage conditions, usage, and budget. All of these factors should be assessed and addressed.

 

Not Sure About Food Packaging?

To help you decide on the right packaging for your food product, share the product type, expected shelf life, how you want your product sealed, and your brand design.