How the Pet Food Industry Benefits from Flexible Packaging
For pet parents, buying nutritious food in quality packaging is as important as for any human parent to ensure that they purchase quality and hygienic food for their pets. There is a rising demand among consumers and businesses alike for packaging that has a minimum environmental impact and keeps the food products safe and uncontaminated for a longer duration.
This is where flexible pouches win over the world as a sustainable solution for packaging needs across the industry, including the pet food industry. The generic advantages of flexible packaging that leads to minimal CO2 emissions aside, the pet food industry benefits immensely owing to the following USPs offered by the different flexible pouches popularly used to pack food for pets.
Benefits for the pet food manufacturer
With more consumers inclined towards eco-friendly packaging, pet food packed in flexible pouches can help manufacturers win over customers, thus increasing their sales volume. As super lightweight packaging, these offer a high product-to-package ratio that translates into significant storage and transportation cost-savings, further contributing to higher profit margins.
Loading their shopping carts with multiple flexible pouches is more manageable for consumers than picking up an equal number of rigid containers. Thus, the easy portability feature of flexible packaging also boosts the sales of your pet food product.
Besides, flexible packaging offers a wide berth to innovate for design specifications, empowering your product to stand out in a crowded marketplace. Topping it off, the custom-printability of the packages makes establishing your brand identity and building up brand recognition a breeze. You can gain the consumer’s trust with transparent labelling of ingredients and nutritional details on the flexible pouches. All in all, visually attractive flexible packaging for pet food products can grab the eyeballs of potential buyers and turn them into loyal customers.
Reduces food waste
With flexible packaging, you can effectively reduce food waste, thus reducing greenhouse gas emissions. High-quality laminates and BPA-free barrier materials in your packaging ensure that the food remains sterile. Heat-sealed packages increase the product’s shelf life by resisting UV rays and preventing moisture incursion, oxygen penetration, and bacterial contamination.
Preferred by consumers
Consumers seek convenience in handling packages, easy access to products from the package, re-sealability, and ease of storing. When buying pet food in bulk, the consumer would skip products that pose a problem to carry from supermarket to home. Flexible pouches can have easy-to-carry handles to solve this issue. Further, no pet parent would appreciate the struggle to open the package, with the chances of creating a large hole that makes the food go bad or spill out, leading to wastage. The solution lies in notched quad seal pouches that can tear off smoothly.
With rigid packaging, consumers would have to transfer the pet food from store-bought packages into a resealable container. However, flexible packaging comes with resealable zip locks that ease storage pangs while keeping the food fresh for longer. Thus, pet food in flexible packaging retains the goodness of the nutrients and the taste of the food, taking care of the wellness of the pets and their satisfaction.
Popular flexible packaging for pet food like stand-up pouches, flat bottom bags, quad seal pouches, etc., are designed to take up less space. So these packages fit into even most space-starved pantries, adding one more reason for consumers to be happy about your product.
Prominence in the retail space
Flexible packaging allows ease in distribution through the supply chain, whether you want to reach your customers through brick-and-mortar retail stores or e-commerce platforms. These can resist product damage due to denting and breakage during transit, thus reducing spillage.
If your product takes up more storage space than the competition, you are likely to be edged out of the sight of potential buyers on supermarket shelves or storage in e-commerce warehouses. Because flexible packaging is a more space-saving option than the conventional cans and rigid boxes of pet food, gaining and retaining your retail prominence becomes easy. However, the challenge does not get over with gaining the space on the supermarket shelves.
Most pet food manufacturers clamber to get their products to stand out from their competitors and not get lost in the retail space. Flexible packaging can give your pet food product a differentiating edge, easing this concern and helping you rise among competing brands.
Better for the environment
Eco-conscious businesses do a favour to themselves and everyone on earth, including the users and non-users of their product, through their operations. Flexible packaging is one such operational best practice that pet food manufacturers adopt to minimise their negative environmental impact through production till the end of life. Yes, most flexible packaging solutions are recyclable, thus ensuring that these do not end up in landfills. Few are even biodegradable, making them excellent compost material. Overall, flexible packaging leaves a minimal carbon footprint compared to its rigid counterparts.
Are you a pet food manufacturer planning to reimagine your packaging aligned with customer preferences? At Solos Polymers, we are committed to understanding your operational philosophy and the product. Get in touch with our experts to adopt flexible packaging options that suit functionality, cost, and your business’s sustainability goals.
