Protect Your Profits with Better Packaging Performance - Food & Beverage Magazine

"In the fresh food business, every batch of salads, premium sandwiches, or grab-and-go meals is prepped with meticulous care. Ingredients are chosen not just for nutritional value, but also for their visual appeal - vibrant colors, appealing textures, and fresh appearance that work together to stop busy shoppers in their tracks and prompt an instinctive reach for the product. That crucial first impression at the point of sale matters enormously - but so does the first experience after purchase."

"When a container arrives home with wilted greens that have lost their crispness, fruit that has turned brown or developed an off-odor, or a leaking lid that has spilled onto other groceries in the bag, disappointment quickly replaces the initial delight. What follows is a cascade of problems: returns that tie up customer service resources, complaints that damage brand reputation, and negative word-of-mouth that spreads far beyond the original disappointed customer."

"The financial impact extends far beyond the simple cost of replacing a single product. Each return requires dedicated labor time to process - from the customer service representative who handles the complaint to the stock clerk who must remove and dispose of the returned item. Valuable shelf space becomes occupied by unsellable merchandise while still consuming storage costs. This challenge is common in today's supermarket perimeter."

Fresh prepared foods are selected for both nutrition and visual appeal to attract shoppers, but post-purchase condition determines lasting satisfaction. Damaged or spoiled items—wilted greens, browned fruit, off-odors, or leaking lids—turn initial delight into disappointment and trigger returns, complaints, and negative word-of-mouth. Returns generate labor costs across customer service and stock handling, occupy shelf space with unsellable merchandise, and add storage expenses. Packaging failures such as weak seals, poor clarity, or inadequate barriers accelerate spoilage and undermine quality well before sell-by dates. Packaging must be engineered as a holistic freshness preservation system that performs flawlessly through every stage of the supply chain.

Read at Food & Beverage Magazine