What You Need to Know About Food & Beverage Packaging

Food and beverage packaging serves a variety of purposes. In addition to protecting your products during shipping and handling, it serves as a direct interface between your brand and the customer. If designed and constructed properly, the investment can help your business succeed by creating a satisfying product experience for your customers. 

The Role of Food and Beverage Packaging in the Consumer Experience

When you select your food and beverage packaging, you determine how your customer experiences your product and brand. Customers are both consciously and subconsciously aware of every facet of your product packaging. It is therefore critical to consider every aspect of the customer’s experience when choosing your packaging, including: 

• How easy is it to open? If your packaging is hard to open, customers may move on to another brand that is easier to handle. 
• Is the product visible? Many customers want to see what they are getting before they purchase a product. 
• Does the product look appealing? Since you want your product to be visible, you also want it to be visually appealing or appetizing. 
• How much product is in the container? Customers want to feel like they are getting their money’s worth, so the packaging should make the product appears to have good value. 
• Can the packaging keep the product fresh? Packaging that maintains the quality of the product helps keep customers happy. 
• Will the product break or stay whole? Good packaging should protect products from damage during shipping and handling. 
• Was the product contaminated? The health and safety of customers are paramount, which is why it is critical to ensure that your packaging materials and processes are selected with care. 

Key Factors of Packaging for the Food and Beverage Industry

Choosing the right packaging for your food and beverage products can be challenging since each product has different packaging requirements. The five main factors to consider when selecting food and beverage packaging are:

• Product protection. Packaging should protect products. 

• Product safety. Packaging should be safe for/ensure the safety of consumers. 

• Product freshness/shelf life. Packaging should keep food fresh.

• Brand identity. Packaging should promote the company that offers the product.

• Packaging appeal. Packaging should align with the retail eye-tracking and merchandising strategy of the company.

Types of Food and Beverage Packaging Designs

Food and beverage packaging can be designed in many ways to suit different product and company needs. Common designs include: 

• Clear plastic printed boxes
• Plastic point-of-purchase (POP) packaging displays and dispensers
• Hybrid paper plastic box combination
• Windowed paperboard package
• Promotional & club packaging
• Interactive packaging

Food and Beverage Packaging Solutions From Printex Transparent Packaging

The packaging of food and beverage products should provide more than just protection. It should also maintain the quality of the product, tells its story, and highlight the brand. 

At Printex Transparent Packaging, we have decades of experience providing high-quality custom transparent food and beverage packaging solutions. We deliver packaging that meets your exact product and marketing needs. To learn more about our capabilities, contact us today. To get started on your solution, request a quote. 

10 Benefits Of Buying Domestically Manufactured PET Boxes vs. China Sourcing

1. Managing long-distance often means a complex supply chain

Importing problems include delays in shipping containers, delays at the port, and unanticipated duties. If a problem does arise, replacing your long-awaited packaging can be a daunting affair potentially causing lost or delayed sales of your product.

2. Shorter Lead Time

It’s difficult to get shipping containers currently. Lead times for empty containers are running around 30 days, just to get a container available to put your goods in.  This makes shipments from Asia even more difficult to arrange.

Sourcing domestically is much faster and less expensive than shipping from international suppliers. Trucking shippers can be leveraged but ocean carriers will be inflexible in terms of costs and time frames.

Shorter lead times increases customers satisfaction. To satisfy the customer’s expectations of short lead times, companies using distant suppliers in China must keep a huge inventory. During Covid times with very high supplier demand, not only is this risky financially, but impossible to keep such a large inventory. This also requires an increase in the cost of storage space.

3. Lower end costs during pack out

When buying PET cartons from China, they often come with a peel-off protective film which isn’t efficient and adds unnecessary waste. The extra plastic film is to help avoid scuffing of the clear boxes during the long vibration prone journey from Asian manufacturing facilities. This film needs to be peeled off and adds significantly to the labor cost during pack out.

4. Buying domestically builds consumer confidence

Customers prefer locally sourced products because they are more confident in domestic quality. When consumers buy with confidence, trust is gained and there is an increase in brand awareness and loyalty.  For example, labels reminding consumers to “buy American” promote this idea. Consumers in North America have a lower opinion of products made in China.

5. Buying domestically provides better production and quality control

In the same time zone, you can have better and timely communication.  Problems are solved faster. Deadlines and quality requirements are better met.

There is a delicate balance between maintaining low cost and achieving high quality and consumer satisfaction. Whenever you try to drive down the price by importing from places like China, there can be repercussions on quality. For example, if you are ordering PET packaging, make sure that you specify the exact thickness of the material, and the exact die line.  You may get thinner material and that can make the structure of a package flimsy and imply poor quality.

6. Buying domestically is simple compared to foreign tax structures, political climates, and costs for importing

Even though imported goods can in some cases be less expensive than domestic goods, there are some additional costs associated with bringing goods from China. Besides transportation costs, you may have to pay,

• Warehouse fees
• Inspection fees
• Port entry fees
• Customs brokers fees
• Agent fees
• Import Duties

7. Buying domestically is better for the local economy

When buying PET cartons here in North America, the money stays in the community.

The domestic workers that are manufacturing the PET carton, are the same neighbors that are buying your product.

 It’s better for the environment because transportation contributes to environmental contamination such as polluting our oceans with large shipping vessels.

8. Buying domestically promotes better, more ethical working conditions

Domestic manufactures provide a higher standard of health and safety over production facilities. Safety of workers is better controlled. Countries where production is outsourced often do not have the same health and safety regulations as in North America. Questionable practices that can be related back to an organization’s product can have a negative effect on a company’s brand and reputation.

9. Buying domestically reduces the cost of deliveries

While it may at first appear that using manufacturing facilities abroad means saving costs, the logistics costs involved with shipping products or materials around the world have increased drastically over the last 18 months. Port congestion and delays also continue to increase, recently resulting in special fee assessments in some ports. Sea container shipping cost has increased as much as 10 fold in some cases, making the freight a much bigger part of the final cost of your clear box packaging. 

High consumer demand and still-lagging inventory levels suggest no let up is coming anytime soon. 

10. Buying made in America clear folding boxes is better for the environment

There is a significant environmental footprint associated with shipping packaging all the way across the ocean. In addition to this, Environmental and pollution manufacturing standards in North America are typically much more stringent and monitored than in China. Shipping also contributes to climate change through emissions of Black Carbon, tiny black particles, produced by combustion of marine fuel. The highest amounts of black carbon particles are produced by ships burning heavy fuel oil. The average container ship holds between 1.5MM and 2MM gallons of bunker fuel and will burn 50K-60K gallons of this heavy fuel oil per day. Given that shipping goods from China to NA requires on average 20 days sailing these cargo ships typically burn up to a 1MM gallons of fuel oil per voyage.  Currently there are no regulations controlling black carbon emissions from shipping.

Compounding the problem is record high trade imbalance with China, which has caused polluting ships to sail back to China empty.  

 According to The Essential Daily Briefing: “It has been estimated that just one of these container ships, the length of around six football pitches, can produce the same amount of pollution as 50 million cars. The emissions from 15 of these mega-ships match those from all the cars in the world.

Clear PET Solutions for Pharma Packaging

First impressions are very important, and packaging is the first aspect of a product that attracts customers. Today, companies are investing significant amounts of time and money on packaging their products as it has a major impact on sales. Eye-tracking research conducted by Clemson University showed that products with clear packaging achieved 678 percent more attention than without transparency. Recently, with the onset of COVID-19, there have been rising concerns about people spreading the virus through touch especially in public locations such as brick and mortar stores.

Clear packaging has proven to be very beneficial during the pandemic as customers can easily view the contents of a product and select what they need with minimal contact with the package. The company’s clear gravity chutes prevent people from touching multiple packages as the product can be identified through the clear gravity feeder and only a single one can be pulled from the bottom at a time. Printex Transparent Packaging leverages cutting-edge technology and the most innovative techniques to offer clients the best transparent packaging style and structure for showcasing their products. “From initial packaging concept to final production we provide personalized support and help clients achieve their packaging goals,” explains David Dennison, President of Printex Transparent Packaging.

Printex Transparent Packaging manufactures clear product packaging for many markets including health and beauty, food and beverage, wine and spirits, pharmaceuticals, cell phones, stationery, home entertainment, and apparel. In particular, for the pharmaceutical market, Printex Transparent Packaging provides an extensive variety of packaging for products ranging from toothpaste and off-the-shelf medicines to treatments and prescription roll dispensers. The prescription roll dispenser conveniently dispenses a roll of personalized medication that is pre-packaged by dose by the pharmacy.

The prescription roll dispenser is made of clear PET and usually has some printed custom graphics. The clear dispenser allows the patient to easily pull and tear off their prescribed dose. The clear material also provides a visual cue as to the remaining quantity of the medication.  Unlike traditional SBS paper dispensers packaging, PET is more durable, resulting in less potential damage from moisture so the dispenser maintains its pristine look and shape in the customer’s home.

With their expertise in converting clear PET sheets, Printex Transparent Packaging was able to rapidly convert their manufacturing capabilities to very cost-effectively mass-produce PPE. Currently, the company is one of the largest and lowest-cost face shield manufacturers in the country and has produced over 20 million FDA-approved face shields. “Our face shields are proudly made in North America in our Long Island, NY facility and Montreal, Quebec facility,” adds Dennison. Various designs of face shields can be printed with logos and custom-designed to a client’s requirements. Also, for manufacturing, Bump cap shields snap directly onto existing bump caps with no accessories required. For the past several months, Printex Transparent Packaging has had an ongoing partnership with Hamilton Health Sciences, a renowned hospital group. The client required a custom face shield that provided more coverage than conventional face shields and after collaborating on the design  Printex Transparent Packaging provided a shield that perfectly met the hospital’s requirements standards. Printex Transparent Packaging continues to produce custom and standard face shields for the client and at the same time makes enhancements based on user feedback.

Printex Transparent Packaging expects much of its growth to come from expanding utilization of its core competencies in working with clear and printed PET packaging. Moving forward, the company continues to expand its offerings in PPE such as face shields and mass-producing very economical desk shields for offices and schools. Leveraging its years of experience with transparent packaging, Printex Transparent Packaging can take on any challenge and deliver exemplary results for clients.

World renowned McMaster University Hospital teams up with Printex Transparent Packaging to design a more protective plastic face shield

 Hospital was concerned about the ultrasound technologists’ lack of protection whilst sitting to the side of patients. Regular Face Shields exposed the sides of their face and neck as the patients were lying down and looking up at them. They wanted a better Face Shield with more protection.


The Ultrasound team at Hamilton Health Sciences’ Hamilton General Hospital developed an extended face shield in partnership with the McMaster Manufacturing and Research Institute and Printex Transparent Packaging for better protection against COVID-19. Left to right: Dr. Michael Colapinto, Radiologist Lead for Ultrasound, and ultrasound technologists Lisa Billone, Kaylana Parente, and Sarah Allred. (CNW Group/Printex Transparent Packaging)

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The Effectiveness of Plastic Face Shields

Here at Printex Transparent Packaging, we want our customers to stay as safe as possible in these very difficult times. That’s why we offer plastic face shields as a way to protect against the spread of COVID-19. There are a few benefits to plastic face shields over masks. In this article, we will look at the effectiveness of plastic face shields.

Eye Protection

One of the major downsides of simply using a cloth face mask is that it does not cover one’s eyes. Eyes have a larger part to play in the spread of viruses than you might initially think. A cough or sneeze that may be blocked by a face mask from entering the mouth or nose could still enter the body through the soft tissue around the eyes. Plastic face masks are useful when the immediate risk of eyes encountering small particulates of the virus is high, such as in healthcare facilities.

Combination With Masks

The most effective way to lower your chances of transmission, besides regular hand-washing and social distancing, is to wear both a face mask and a face shield over the top of it. In this way, the face shield and the mask work together. The mask becomes more effective at blocking airborne pathogens because fewer particulates are making their way into the mask with the presence of the face shield.

Reduction in Face Touching

Perhaps one of the most annoying things about face masks is their tendency to not always fit properly over individual noses and mouths. This can lead to constant readjusting of the face mask, introducing anything that may be on your hands into the mask itself. Even worse, adjusting the mask can allow particulates to slip around the side of them. A plastic face shield reduces the need to put your hands anywhere near your face, thus reducing the risk of transmission.

If you are going to utilize face shields for protection, then it is important to understand the effectiveness of plastic face shields. Printex Transparent Packaging is more than just clear box packaging, and we want to make sure that you and those you care about are safe throughout these changes to our lives.

Face Shields vs. Masks for Protection From COVID-19

Since safety is everyone’s top priority right now, as the COVID-19 pandemic shows no signs of stopping, everyone is still wondering how best to protect themselves. One of the more heated arguments is whether face shields are more effective than face masks, or vice versa. Here we’ll explore some of the key differences between them and help determine the qualities of face shields vs. masks for protection from COVID-19.

Face Shields

Disposable plastic face shields can be effective against spreading COVID-19 if used properly. One of the best parts about a face shield is that it protects the entire face, including the all-important eyes. The eyes are a vulnerable point of entry for the virus, so the face shield’s ability to protect this area is key. Disposable plastic face shields offer full coverage of the nose, mouth and eyes. But they also prevent you from touching your face, are comfortable to wear, are reusable and are almost impossible to wear wrong.

One of the problems with disposable plastic face shields is that the virus often spreads through very small particles that can sometimes find their way past the shield. The open sides and bottom of face shields do not effectively protect the mouth from any stray virus transmission. However, a 2014 cough simulation by the National Library of Medicine found that a face shield can reduce a person’s viral exposure by 96% when worn within 18” (45.7cm) of someone who is coughing. Also, Dr. Amesh Adala, a Johns Hopkins Infectious Disease Expert, does not believe that the open areas of a shield are a major risk for transmission since respiratory droplets are gravity-dependent. In fact, he believes that the openings around the face shield make it easier to wear and easier to comply with. The benefits of not touching your face and protecting your eyes outweigh any deficiency anyone may pose against face shields.

Face Masks

We all know how important face masks are to preventing the spread of COVID-19, but they are not without drawbacks as well. Face masks are useful because the most effective ones fully cover the mouth and nose, blocking the virus’s most common pathways into the body. It is important to ensure that the mask creates a seal around the mouth and nose so as not to let any viral particles slip through.

On the other hand, face masks do not solve the problem of exposed eyes the way that face shields do. One of the other downsides of face masks is that many people do not have the approved N95 masks and, therefore, use homemade masks or surgical masks that do not create a solid seal on the face. Plus, people often touch their faces more while wearing a mask, as they tend to be uncomfortable and prone to slippage.

Conclusion

After weighing the pros and cons, the answer to whether face shields or masks are better protection from COVID-19 is that neither of them is perfect. If you are heading out into the public, a face mask should be the absolute minimum required for doing so. However, if you are in a highly trafficked area or a field such as the medical or delivery fields, the best answer would be to wear both, as this will give you the highest chance to prevent the virus from spreading to or from you. If you are in the office and are distancing, a face shield will likely feel more comfortable.

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