9 Food Packaging Mistakes You Can’t Afford To Make
Running a food business isn’t a walk in the park, especially since there are plenty of things you need to take into consideration. In order to be successful, you must be sure to provide the most delicious flavors, be distinctive, and outperform the rest of your competitors to get the full amount of income that your company deserves. Apart from that, you also need to make sure you pick the right food packaging because it can affect your business brand and reputation.
Food packaging plays an important role in running a business. That’ll help your products to sell faster while also providing maximum convenience to your customers. However, with the number of creative designs to choose from, you must be careful to select which style would work best for your business. Before you buy food packaging, listed below are some common mistakes you need to avoid to save cost and perfectly keep your food in its best condition:
1. Not Listing Down Every Ingredient
As you list the ingredients on your food packaging, it’s extremely important to take note of every single ingredient you use, no matter how small. This usually includes food that might contain allergens such as milk, eggs, wheat, peanuts, soy, and fish. That’ll help you to protect your consumers from possible health risks, especially if they are allergic to a certain ingredient. If you’re unsure if your product has allergens, you can always write ‘may contain’ before your list at the back of your packaging.
2. Using The Wrong Material
Choosing the right material for your food packaging is extremely important as it helps your food products stay fresh for longer and ensures that they reach your customers’ homes in good condition. Even if the materials look aesthetically pleasing but can’t adequately hold your food products, then it’s best to consider alternative packaging materials. You can test the packaging for yourself to determine how effectively it will keep your food fresh.
3. Using Difficult-To-Open Packaging
Nothing’s more annoying than being very eager to eat and then having to struggle for several minutes just to open the packaging. Although keeping your food items safe and secure is a priority, using tight seals for them may not be ideal. Preferably, your packaging should be easy to open, particularly if the item is hot and needs to be consumed immediately. This way, you can maintain the food’s safety while allowing your customers to grab a quick bite without exerting too much effort.
4. Overpacking
Unfortunately, some companies have a tendency to overpack their products in an effort to make them stand out from the competition and protect the food from exposure to elements. While they do a great job of keeping their goods safe, it might not be the best option, especially in light of the negative attention that certain packaging materials have received due to their harmful environmental effects. For this reason, you should avoid overpacking your products to make your company more profitable and generate less waste.
5. Incorporating Uninteresting Designs
Minimalism is gaining popularity each day as it’s simple yet sophisticated. However, some people may view it differently because they believe it means creating designs that are overly straightforward and less interesting. For your food products, it’s best to be creative with your packaging design, no matter what theme you’re going for. Making your products stand out on the shelf should be made possible with the use of the appropriate fonts and colors.
6. Not Aligning Your Packaging With Your Target Consumers’ Wants
One of the most common mistakes that food companies tend to make is designing packaging that doesn’t match their target consumers’ wants. While having a concept of how your business should look is a good idea, the design should align with your customer’s interests. Otherwise, they might not purchase your products. For instance, a person who cares about the environment would be interested in packaging that’s both sustainable and reusable.
7. Using Hard-To-Read Labels
As you design your food packaging, it could be tempting to include all the appealing labels in an effort to attract customers. However, it’s more crucial to highlight all the health advantages people could receive from your food products in addition to how it was responsibly produced. Even though your product has a lot of positive attributes, placing them all on one side of your packaging could make it appear cluttered. Moreover, consumers might not read a lot of information, costing you money in wasted print materials.
Furthermore, if you use small and hard-to-read fonts for your packaging, your customers might have difficulty understanding and reading what your entire product is all about. When this happens, they may reconsider putting your product back on the shelf in favor of another option.
8. Letting Grammatical Errors Slip
Before approving and publishing your product packaging design, it’s important that you check for any errors, such as grammar and typos. Although you might think this is a small matter, it says a lot about the professionalism of your business. This could cause people to believe that your products aren’t made to meet high-quality standards just because you overlooked a minor error in the packaging. To help your customers trust your business, you should eliminate all typos and grammatical errors.
9.Mimicking Your Competitor’s Style
As you launch a product that caters to a specific audience, it could be tempting to create a product design with a similar theme to your competitors because they are successful at attracting your target market. However, adopting a similar style might only mislead your customers or harm your reputation because they might think you can’t stand out as a unique brand.
So, in order to identify yourself as a reputable business, it’s always best to create a design that is entirely your own. If you have the money, you may employ marketing or advertising companies to work with you on creating designs that will have a lasting impact on the food business industry.
Takeaway
Choosing and designing the right food packaging can be challenging for every business owner. But with the right planning and strategy, you should be able to beat your competitors and stay on top of the competition. As you choose the right materials for the packaging, go with the right theme, and study your audience to know what would be the best option for your food business.