Beverage Insights Magazine: Packaging

In the overcrowded beverage space, unique packaging can make or break a sale. It provides the differential that inspires the consumer to stop and look at an item that otherwise may have simply blended in amidst all the options. Underestimating the importance of packaging can be a beverage brand's fatal flaw, as each decision is intricately woven together, whether selecting delivery format, size, material, design, cost, marketing power or potential shelf placement

In this free Digital Issue on beverage packaging, which is hosted on sister site SupplySide Beverage Insights, James S. Tonkin, president of HealthyBrandBuilders and co-founder of SupplySide Beverage Insights, revisits some popular brands whose packaging was a makeor breakfactor.

Beyond aesthetic design and market appeal, packaging provides benefits, such as product protection, consumer information, and safe and convenient handling. Packaging suppliers are continually introducing innovative designs and new technologies to prolong the shelf life of perishable goods and help reduce breakage and loss, while reducing the amount of material used in the manufacturing process. Hal Howell, a beverage market manager for Amcor Rigid Plastics North America, explores the push to consider environmental impact via light-weight packaging, or "light-weighting," a method beverage manufacturers are employing to cut their environmental footprint and production costs.

Adding his take on the challenges of sustainability is Adam Gendell, project manager at GreenBlues Sustainable Packaging Coalition. The common approach to making packaging more sustainable involves identifying one or more unwanted impacts and taking steps to reduce them. Unfortunately, this strategy isn't a magic formula, as a decision to reduce one unwanted impact may actually increase another unwanted impact. For example, aluminum cans have a high rate of recycling; however, if a greater amount of greenhouse gas emissions is created during their production than that of PET bottles, the best decision becomes less obvious. Gendell explains how to avoid four common pitfalls in making packaging more sustainable.