What is food packaging?
Food packaging is not just packaging. And, yes, we know it is more trendy to say food packaging instead of food packaging. That’s just the way we are: sometimes we use English words for no reason. Or maybe because everyone does, because it sounds better to us.
But beyond what you prefer to call it, there is one thing we absolutely must remember when we talk about packaging of any kind and even more so about food packaging. What we need to remember is that the food packaging we choose speaks volumes about us.
Food packaging is a communication channel
Packaging, in fact, is a medium. A physical medium that surely must meet three basic requirements:
- must contain
- must preserve
- Must allow products to be transported.
But there is something more.
Since it is a medium, packaging is an extraordinary tool for communicating.
This is well explained by Giovanni Brunazzi, Salvatore Parisi and Amina Pereno, three authors of a fine research paper entitled The Instrumental Role of Food Packaging.
What does it mean that food packaging is a communication channel?
What does it mean to communicate with packaging? It means that, depending on the food packaging you choose, you are communicating something to your customers. You are telling something about yourself and your company, your choices, your products.
Even if you don’t realize it, even if you don’t think about it, even if you believe that after all it is just food packaging and the important thing is the contents.
When a customer walks around with the food packaging you have chosen, perhaps customized with your logo, they are advertising your brand.
When a customer walks into your store and discovers that you have made green choices, it positions you in a certain, very specific way in his or her imagination.
How to choose food packaging?
Let’s take a practical example that affects us closely.
If you choose compostable, eco-friendly, sustainable products you are communicating to your customers that you care about the environment. In other words, that you care precisely about your customers, to the point that you make choices, even daily, even small ones, that think not only about the present but also and especially about the future.
In a sense, if you choose compostable, eco-friendly, sustainable food packaging, you are communicating to your customers that you are doing something with them to change the world a little bit. And they will start choosing you for that reason, too.
What is ecological food packaging?
Eco-friendly food packaging is, first and foremost, responsible packaging. It can be made of paper, cardboard, bagasse, or PLA. Back in 2012, Comieco, Consorzio Nazionale Recupero e Riciclo degli Imballaggi a base Cellulosica (National Consortium for the Recovery and Recycling of Cellulose-Based Packaging), in collaboration with the University Iuav of Venice Faculty of Design and Arts and the New Frontiers of Design Research Unit, produced, for Edizioni Dativo Srl, a beautiful book, also available in pdf, entitled Il buon packaging.
It was known as early as 2015 that consumers are influenced by packaging. As Lifegate wrote, for example.
According to a survey conducted by Tetra Pak, a food packaging company, more than three-quarters of consumers say that sustainable packaging has an influence on the beverage they buy.
And of course, this trend is not only in the beverage world, but also in the food world.
In 2019, great concern for the environment has become a driver for more conscious choices with respect to a type of packaging that abandons single-use plastic. Not only because of the European directive, but also as a concrete action.
From 2020, thanks in part to the push toward environmentalist instances coming from the very young, it is to be expected that the trend will continue to grow. Therefore, here we bring you our sustainable approach to the world of packaging. Let’s not let when we say that this is the year of clean packaging this remain just a statement of intent.
How to choose environmentally sustainable packaging: 3 key aspects to know
The concept of sustainability in packaging is one of the core values that Cartaria Italiana relies on in order to be able to offer high quality food delivery products to the market. Guiding customers in the conscious choice of packaging means respecting our Planet, and for this very reason Cartaria Italiana has decided to enter into a partnership with the Department of Food Science, Nutrition and the Environment of the University of Milan, which daily studies the materials with which food packaging is made, analyzes their criticalities, and focuses on the research and development of new solutions that can be increasingly eco-sustainable.
It is important to keep in mind, as Professor Stefano Farris, professor of food packaging at the University of Milan, explains, that when we talk about environmentally sustainable materials we have to consider not only the end of life of the product-that is, “where do I throw it?” – but also the material composition of it and how much is the logistical impact (transportation) to be able to create that particular material, because that means CO₂ emissions into the environment. Just to emphasize the importance of this last aspect, for the past few years we have been talking about Carbon Footprint, or the measure that expresses in CO₂ equivalent the total greenhouse gas emissions associated directly or indirectly with a product or service.
Through this important measurement tool, combined with a “holistic” or global approach, each of us can make choices that are truly environmentally sustainable and feel that we are an active participant in protecting the environment.
Spreading the culture of eco-sustainability is our mission: we do this on a daily basis by talking to our clients, but especially by reaching out to those who know more than we do and can teach us how to really make gestures and choices that safeguard the environment, the air we breathe, and the waters of our oceans.
How to communicate with eco-friendly food packaging?
One of the best ways to communicate with eco-friendly food packaging is, after choosing it, to make customers understand the importance of your choice.
For this reason, in Cartaria Italiana, for example, we have prepared a communication kit for our customers: we want to help you tell everyone that you care about the future. We have chosen the hashtag #noisiamogreen, prepared a window sticker, riders, a poster that you can hang or display in your restaurant, in your outlets, and that emphasizes in the right way an environmentally conscious and sustainable behavior.
The personalized food packaging
The trend of personalized food packaging tells you in the best possible way about the communicative power of the packaging and packages you choose for your food. Customization is beautiful, it turns an anonymous package into a carrier that gives visibility to the name of your restaurant, your pizzeria, your logo, even your values if you decide to tell something about yourself, even if only with a sentence.
In other words, customizing food packaging is a great tool for your brand, and it is not just about aesthetics: it also helps you get your name out there. In short, it helps you sell.
Food packaging design
The design of your packaging is critical. Both in the way it shows your logo and in which it gives visibility to your brand both because of the way you help people consume your products. That’s why the three questions you need to ask yourself when choosing (or getting designed) food packaging are:
- What are your products that need food packaging?
- who are your customers?
- How and where do your customers consume your products?
The first one, perhaps, seems like an obvious question. But it is most important, crucial, and underlies many other questions: what are you selling? What size? What are your needs? Do you need hot use containers? Cold use? Both? Do they deteriorate? Do they need to be stored warm? Product knowledge is crucial in choosing the design Of your food packaging.
It is also crucial to know the habits of your customers: do you sell products that children usually consume? Families? Do you sell lunchtime products for working people?
And then, where and how will these people consume your products? At home, because you make home delivery? On a bench in the park? In the office? Will they need to warm up with a microwave?
As you can see, these are not trivial questions. In fact, they are critical to helping you make the right choice. That’s why, in addition to taking a tour of our e-commerce site, you might want to give us a call: do so now at 023542189, or send us AN EMAIL. We can guide you in making the right choices.
Takeaway packaging and street food packaging: useful, safe, beautiful, eco-friendly products
Since home deliveries (but also the food you buy and take home) and the street food have experienced a real boom, it has also become critical to choose the right packaging.
The containers you propose for food, for your dishes, for your creations, for drinks and beverages in general must certainly be safe and suitable for food packaging. But-and this is precisely what we propose with Cartaria Italiana’s products-they must also be beautiful to look at and sustainable in an environmental and ecological sense.
They need to speak about you not only because you personalize them, but also because they show what you have chosen for your business. To make informed choices you need guidance. For this we explain, for example, What is the difference between organic and compostable. And for that we provide you with a Extensive catalog of environmentally friendly containers.
Food packaging online: how to buy
If you have read this far, it is highly likely that you are also interested in buy food packaging online For your business.
We know that it is not easy to trust a purchase online the first time.
For this reason, there is not only our website to try. You can, for example, download our catalog of eco-friendly food packaging products by leaving us your details. You can also contact us to find out all that we can offer you, by e-mail at info@cartariaitaliana.it and/or by phone at 023542189.
