The new era of smart packaging is at our doorstep, and we shouldn’t blindly ignore the fact that smart and active packaging will slowly, but surely take over the market. Smart packaging is offering customers a number of ways to interact with the product/brand itself, whether that is scanning a QR code printed on the package and get additional information about the product itself or being represented with information about the product’s temperature or freshness. What was used only to protect products in the past, will tomorrow receive much more important roles and functionalities that go along with it.
In this article, you will find everything that you need to know before taking that big step.
First of all, you need to know that smart packaging is divided into active packaging and intelligent packaging.
Active Packaging
Active packaging has been used for a dozen years now, with its main role being to interact with the product, improve its health properties and extend shelf life. There are two main ways smart and active packaging are used.
The first one is by placing an element directly inside the package which can prevent moisture, capture oxygen, or work as an antibacterial substance, while the second way is by embedding the active element on the smart package itself, through printing or lamination. The second way is far more popular as it doesn’t involve objects people are not familiar with inside the package. An example would be applying oxygen scavenger into the package of cooked or sliced meat products, which will prevent them from discoloration.
The main advantages that smart and active packaging offers are the longer expiry date, which allows the product to be distributed far away from the place of origin, the reduction in food waste, disallowing oxidation, preventing loss of the original taste, smell, and colour of the product.
Intelligent Packaging
While not being very commercially present, intelligent packaging has the ability to sense a change in the product or the smart package. It monitors the condition of the product and can tell if there has been a breach in quality during transport or storage, it displays the product’s temperature and can tell the freshness of the product.
Such smart packaging systems use external or internal indicators that can determine these conditions. These indicators can be split up into three different groups, with the first one being the indicators that are placed on the outside of the package. This indicator usually shows the temperature of the product. The second group consists of indicators that are placed inside the package and can provide information about oxygen leak, carbon dioxide, or, for example, the presence of salmonella. The third groups together indicators that allow the consumer to easily communicate with the product/brand. This group falls into one important subset of intelligent packaging – connected packaging.
Connected Packaging
Connected packaging is the smart packaging that is equipped with QR codes, NFC tags or other communication protocols, that can trigger certain functions. Brands love this type of packaging as it gives the customers an easy way to acquire additional information about the product they just purchased. By simply scanning the NFC or the QR code with their smartphones, they are immediately sent to a place that provides them with more detailed and specific information about the product, while also giving them the chance to digitally purchase more goods.
Smart packaging brings other components on the table that offer different functionalities such as alarms, Bluetooth, or RFID (radio-frequency identification) chips. These RFID chips can, for example, simplify the storage strategy in a great manner, granting the company the exact number of units that are available at the moment, in a certain location. The smart package is connected at the moment of production. RFID is providing the packages with unique identification codes and can read up to 600 units per second via installed censoring beforehand. This type of storage management greatly reduces inventory levels, lowers shrinkage and costs, it is also much more efficient to the company and customer’s benefit.
Why Switch to Smart and Active Packaging?
Smart and active packaging is still in the beginning stage, but the potential is massive. The package is usually the face of the company, so, getting the right packaging solution is of utter importance for the brand.
Studies and personal experience have shown that people usually reach out for the product that has the most attractive packaging, while not taking the higher price so much into consideration. This type of smart and active packaging, intelligent packaging as well, makes the price of the product increase, due to the higher production cost of the package.
The numerous benefits smart and active packaging offer, can in no way be overshadowed by the higher production cost. Extending the shelf-life while promoting less product waste, granting consumers with important additional information that can result in increased sales, and simplifying the storage strategy and its cost, are just a few benefits offered by smart and active packaging.
The Right Smart and Active Packaging for You
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