Consumers’ demand for single-serve and grab-and-go snacks drives packaging innovation.
 

Consumers can be fickle, and it’s hard to predict what will be the next big thing. From changing preferences in portion sizes to demanding transparency in their food, shoppers are driving change in packaging and processing in the baking and snack industries.

Prepped for display

Retail-ready packaging (RRP) continues to gain popularity, as evidenced in its ever-growing penetration across all categories of packaged food products. According to a recent survey conducted by Smithers Pira, a marketing research firm that specializes in packaging, 57% of equipment suppliers in North America stated they had received an increased number of RRP requests from their retail customers in the past 12 months.

Rick Gessler, director of marketing and strategic account management, Delkor, confirmed that the company is seeing this trend among its customer base. “Retail-ready packaging has been a point of discussion on most of the projects we have worked on over the past year, and we expect this to remain in 2017. There will continue to be a demand for RRP solutions, smaller shelf displays and smaller shippers.”

In 2014, Delkor introduced a caser that provides snack manufacturers a shelf-ready exterior that protects flexible packaging during distribution and easily converts from the shipper to the display case. The use of bleached linerboard allows for high-impact, wraparound graphics and custom die-cuts for maximum shelf appeal.

“These trends in retail are drivers toward smaller shelf displays, which in turn drives up the rates required of case packers,” Mr. Gessler added. “We are working on expanding our portfolio of packaging solutions, increasing the flexibility of our packaging systems and paving the way for new categories to work with our designs. At the end of the day, we are helping our customers future-proof their operations.”

Continue to see how smaller portions are influencing packaging trends.