About Packaging Trends In 2019

Packaging has turned into a complete industry as the game is not just about the product safety now. There are several other factors which need to be considered when it comes to packaging of products.

In this scenario, it would be worth mentioning a few packaging trends.

Connected packaging

You may wonder about the term connected packaging. The world is moving towards connectivity in every aspect of life; and this trend of connectivity is also influencing the packaging industry. You may have heard about the concept ‘Internet of Things’. This concept is fully utilized in the packaging industry. Moreover, the packaging operations are now being managed online. The technologies being used in connected packaging mainly include QR codes, Near Field Communication (NFC), radio frequency identification tags (RFID), Bluetooth, and augmented reality (AR). Connected packaging doesn’t only make packaging operations faster but it also makes it very easy to take care of product safety and branding factor while packaging of the products.

Recyclable packaging materials

With customers getting more conscious about the climate and environment, and demand for the use of recyclable materials in packaging process has increased quite drastically. Although the quicker employment of recyclable materials for certain industries, e.g. foods, doesn’t seem a reality, things are certainly heading towards the scenario when it will become a vital requirement for the food packaging industries to use recyclable and sustainable packaging materials.

Reinvention of the boxes

In this era, one of the major developments seems to be the boom in e-commerce industry. More people now seem to log in online and order products and services. It means that manufacturing units have to dispatch more shipments to meet the consumer demands. In which scenario, it has become very important for the packaging and shipments to represent brands. Moreover, this increase in demand seems to have greater impact on technologies, business, supply chain, and packaging design.

Plastic free packaging

Use of plastic in packaging has led to the generation of huge amount of plastic waste. This is the reason that strategies are being made to reduce the use of plastic in the product packaging process. The best solution for this issue is the use of sustainable packaging options which may or may not use plastic but it is the fact that this packaging method can reduce packaging waste quite drastically.

One thing worth mentioning here is that plastic free doesn’t mean complete elimination of plastic from the packaging process. It is rather concerned with the addition of other materials to make the packaging more sustainable and recyclable.