New Packaging Trends

Consumer demand is arguably the most influential factor that shapes the direction of packaging technology – and consumers are notoriously fickle. It is inevitable that today's growing public desire for healthier lifestyles and more ecologically sound products should drive a shift in packaging trends, especially for the food industry.
Prolonging the life of foodstuffs, maintaining product quality and meeting customer expectations, while still making a profit, places significant constraints on packagers and producers, particularly when it comes to developing novel approaches to packaging.
The current iteration of these converging and, at times, conflicting demands predicates packaging which is effective and essentially recyclable, if not completely biodegradable. As a result, many in the industry predict that edible coatings will increasingly become the way of the future.
If so – and some of the ideas that have emerged from research laboratories around the world do ultimately translate into commercial reality – the new technology could change the face of food and packaging forever. The next generation of food wraps will, it seems, not only protect foodstuffs from damage, prevent spoilage, extend shelf-life and improve their appearance, they will help to kill bacteria and add flavor too.

Antimicrobial coatings
The idea is an exciting one. Although the antimicrobial properties of many plant-derived essential oils have long been recognized and there is nothing intrinsically new about edible coatings, combining them into naturally bactericidal food wraps holds enormous promise for the industry.
If new types of edible coatings can be developed – to be used on highly perishable foods, to form flavor-enhancing glazes when cooked or that can supplement the vitamin or mineral quality of food, for instance – and made properly market-ready, their future will be very exciting.

Coated boxes
This potential could, however, take a while to be realized. More traditional approaches to packaging are likely to be around for some time, but here too developments in coating technology play a major part in addressing the needs of changing times and evolving consumer demand.
Wax-coated corrugated boxes, for example, have been one of the conventional mainstays for a range of perishable foods for many years but concerns regarding the recyclability of packaging are leading many retailers and processors to look for alternatives. The presence of such coatings effectively rules out re-pulping the paperboard, typically making it impossible for producers or their customers to dovetail into existing local recycling arrangements, while consigning waste cartons over long distances for retreatment is itself scarcely a sustainable option.
Water-based barrier coatings could offer one potential solution to the problem, although the often highly specific needs of individual food producers means that there is seldom a simple, "one-size-fits-all" answer to be had.
Even under the best of economic circumstances, the food and packaging industries face a significant challenge in marrying the often near-irreconcilable demands of consumer preference, product integrity and profitability. Moreover, as the Food Technology Intelligence report, 'New Packaging Technologies For The Food Industry - 2009 Edition' makes clear, "complicating these issues for food companies are the costs of implementing new technologies aimed at meeting these demands".
It is hard to imagine how the recent developments within coatings technology can fail to have significant ramifications for the industry as a whole, assuming that they successfully make the jump to commercial viability. There are, after all, few more effective ways for any company to get ahead of its competitors than by optimizing its product packaging.