Small Business Food Packaging 101: What’s Best for You
How to Choose the Right Packaging for Food Products
How you present your products is almost as important as how good they taste. Consumers’ choices are very much influenced by food packaging design, and you need to make sure your containers say what you want them to about your products and your business.
Who Are Your Customers?
When deciding on packaging for food products, think of your venue, your brand image, and who you’re trying to appeal to. If you’re marketing to parents through their children, a fun, whimsical approach to packaging can be best with bright colors, large fonts, and illustrations.
Caramel corn containers with eye-catching fonts and cotton candy bags featuring an iconic circus clown are great options.
If your intended customer base is more mature, a sophisticated, understated design is more attractive. Clean white and classic brown paper often trigger associations with hand-crafted items in the minds of consumers.
Simple white fudge boxes and window popcorn bags or clear packaging for gourmet popcorn are good choices for the customer who enjoys supporting local businesses.
What Makes a Customer Decline to Purchase?
Small business food packaging choices are important, but once you’ve picked a package, how do you make customers want to buy?
Don’t overlook your labels! According to survey done by Luminer in August 2017, 60% of shoppers may decide against a purchase if the label doesn’t provide enough information, and 33% may turn down a product altogether just because they don’t like the label.
Avoid this problem by making sure your logo and branding stand out on your packaging and including a detailed nutrition label, which is required by law (see the FDA food labeling guide for more details).
If you sell prepackaged products, or make your food from Gold Medal supplies, the nutrition information is provided for you – you just need to include a sticker with the information on your packaging.
Go the Extra Mile
A personal touch can go a long way toward encouraging a customer to purchase. Create popcorn gift baskets that will make gift giving easy for customers: for anniversaries, showers, and other occasions.
Other ideas for fun food packaging could include containers that correspond to the lasted blockbuster movie release or a holiday or season. Offering custom packaging and even gift wrapping for a minimal fee will also make customers feel more in control and appreciative of your efforts.
Trial and Error
If you find your choice of packaging is not as effective as you’d hoped, you can always change your mind. Feel free to ask your best customers what they’d rather see in your packages and labels and adapt accordingly.
As long as you stay within a cost range that lets you price your products reasonably for your customers and still allows your business to profit, you’re free to experiment until you find the right fit for your brand.
Find more resources for your retail food business and get inspired with these fun food concepts.