Produce Packaging

While the appearance of a product often influences buyers’ decisions, how its packaging looks plays a big role in those choices, as well.

With simplified, sustainable produce packaging solutions from Felins, you can trust that your product is not only safe and secure but attractive to consumers.

Benefits of Using Packaging for Fresh Produce

Packaging fresh fruits and vegetables is beneficial for growers, retailers, and consumers alike.

Damage Prevention

Packaging for fresh produce primarily serves to protect the product within. With appropriate packaging, produce can be protected from:

• Shock and vibration
• Impacts
• Abrasions
• Crushing
• Bruising
• Mechanical damage

Contamination Protection

In addition to preventing physical damage, some types of produce packaging also protect the product from other harmful influences including environmental and biological threats.

Environmental

Packaging materials may provide a barrier against chemical contamination and harmful environmental influences to keep produce safe. Fresh produce can be damaged by:

• Exposure to gases like oxygen
• Moisture gain or loss
• Infrared or ultraviolet light

Biological

Without sufficient packaging, fresh produce can be susceptible to biological threats that can accelerate spoilage or spread disease. Packaging can be used to protect produce from threats such as:

• Pathogens
• Insects
• Rodents
• Small animals
• Spoiling agents

Improved Shelf Life

You can increase the usability of fresh produce by protecting them from external elements and premature spoilage. By encouraging a longer shelf life through produce packaging, you can ensure that consumers have a longer period of time to use and consume your products, preventing unnecessary food waste as a result of produce going bad too quickly.

It can also help extend the life of produce by keeping important ingredients from escaping. For example, English cucumbers are typically wrapped in plastic to keep water in, slowing the dehydration and spoilage process.

Accessible Variable Data

Produce packaging solutions from Felins also feature the ability to print variable data onto banding materials, providing clarity and accessibility. Including vital information relating to the banded produce can enhance the visual appearance and appeal of your product while also informing consumers of essential information relating to the packaged produce. Variable data that can be printed on paper or plastic banding include:

• Branded text
• Logos
• Lot codes
• Expiration dates
• Barcodes
• QR codes
• Manufacturing dates
• Production dates

Boosted Shelf Impact

With effective, attractive packaging, your products can make a bigger impact on consumers, encouraging them to purchase your offerings over other options. It is important to consider the influences of packaging attributes on consumer purchase decisions for fresh produce. By prioritizing the vegetable and fruit packaging design and function, your produce can make a bigger impact on consumers and compel them to choose your product over others.

Using appropriate packaging can give you a competitive edge and increase potential sales. This is especially important if you want to differentiate your produce from the competition. Organic products, for example, should look different to the consumer so they can be easily identified. Elegant, unique packaging can also help justify a higher price point to the consumer.

Produce Packaging Video: Apple Paper Banding from Felins

Why Use Sustainable Produce Packaging Supplies

Using sustainable fruit and vegetable packaging supplies can be an attractive and beneficial practice for growers, distributors, and consumers.

Reduce Packaging Waste

Food and packaging waste is a growing problem. We are all familiar with the mantra: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Opting for sustainable packaging practices can contribute to a reduction in food-related packaging waste. When it comes to reducing packaging waste, one of the best practices is to reduce the amount of packaging being used. Practices such as right-sizing packages and the use of alternate technologies such as banding that can eliminate plastic bags, and clamshells are quickly gaining traction, as well.

With clearly-marked recyclable packaging, you can keep your produce protected and encourage consumers to maintain green disposal practices. By using sustainable, recyclable packaging for your produce, you can help reduce both kinds of waste and promote greener distribution and consumption standards.

Improve Produce Consumption

Appropriate packaging for fresh vegetables and fruit can ensure that consumers have access to fresh, healthy products that last longer and retain their nutritional value. Using sustainable packaging can also attract more consumers, leading to an increase in produce consumption and profitability.

Build Relationships With Growers and Consumers

By opting for eco-friendly produce packaging solutions, you can improve the relationships between growers and consumers as well as improve brand recognition.

Modern consumers are constantly pushing for more sustainable and earth-friendly products, so meeting these desires with sustainable fruit and vegetable packaging supplies is an effective way to appeal to consumers and encourage a stronger, healthier relationship between consumers and growers.

Materials Used for Packaging Produce

The materials used in produce packaging can directly impact the product’s shelf life, freshness, and protection during transportation and storage. Common packaging materials traditionally include

• Glass
• Plastics
• Film
• Foils
• Aluminum
• Laminates
• Tinplate
• Tin-free steel
• Paper
• Paperboards

How to Ship Produce With Packaging

When transporting and distributing fresh produce, appropriate packaging offers protection and security, mitigating common risks of damage and contamination that could occur during the process.

With proper packaging, produce can be kept fresh and safe until they go home with consumers.

Choose the Right Packaging

Depending on the type and quantity of produce you are planning to package, different types and techniques of packaging may be more suitable. It is important to consider the risks involved with shipping particular produce and account for them with your packaging choices.

In general, shipping packaged produce tends to minimize potential damage and ensure fresh, safe, produce arrives on the shelves.

Keep Produce Fresh

During shipping, produce can be exposed to oxygen and spoiling agents, resulting in damaged goods that cannot be sold or consumed. This process contributes to an increase in food waste, but packaging fresh produce can prevent food from rotting.

Packaged produce not only tends to have a longer shelf life but can also stay fresh longer during transportation and distribution, as proper packaging can also help to extend produce shelf life.

Keep Produce Safe

While in transportation, fresh produce can be especially vulnerable to physical damage. Becoming bruised, cut, or otherwise damaged can result in produce spoiling faster, making it difficult or unsafe to sell and consume. Proper packaging for fresh produce can protect products from physical damage, ensuring they can safely reach the shelves.

Fresh Produce Packaging Equipment From Felins

Industrial packaging machines from Felins offer a simple, sustainable, and effective means of packaging fresh produce for optimal safety, freshness, and shelf impact.

Banding

Banding machines from Felins allow you to securely package fresh produce to promote safety and freshness while also allowing you to improve the visual appeal of your products.

Paper

As sustainable package initiatives increase, there is a growing interest in the use of paper as packaging material. The use of paper banding is a popular alternative to other bundling methods. Because of the sustainability benefits, paper banding is quickly replacing traditional pressure sensitive labels and shrink wraps in a variety of different applications.

With a wide but thin band of paper, this type of banding can effectively label and secure your fresh produce without adhesives in a visually appealing and non-damaging way. Felins offers a variety of different papers to meet just about any packaging and labeling requirement. You can also print variable data such as barcodes and expiration dates on paper bands, providing important information to consumers that may influence their buying decisions.

Plastic

Like paper banding, plastic banding can provide a branded, attractive, and secure packaging solution for fresh produce. Plastic banding solutions from Felins can be fully automated for optimal efficiency and effectiveness. Plastic bands are both secure and easy to remove upon delivery or purchase. With plastic banding machines, you can protect delicate produce without the use of adhesives, as well. Variable data such as bar codes, lot codes, expiration dates, and more can also be printed on plastic banding.

Frequently Asked Questions About Produce Packaging

What is Produce Packaging?

Produce packaging refers to any material used and assembled to bundle, pack, label or sleeve fresh produce. Packaging for fresh produce can come in a variety of different materials. Using packaging for produce provides numerous benefits including:

• Physical damage protection
• Contamination prevention
• Labeling and marketing potential
• Improved shelf life of fresh produce
• Food waste reduction

How Do You Package Fresh Produce?

There are many ways you can package fresh produce to keep them safe, secure, and fresh. With banding solutions from Felins, you can use paper or plastic to package fruits and vegetables to promote stability during transportation and provide an attractive look to consumers.

What Packaging Keeps Food Fresh?

To keep produce fresh, packaging can prevent physical damage such as bruising or lacerations, reducing the risk of spoiling. Packaging solutions that provide structure, stability, and coverage are often the most effective at keeping produce fresh.

How Do You Dispose of Produce Packaging?

Proper disposal of produce packaging depends on the materials used in the packaging process. Many materials including cardboard can often be recycled at home.

How Does Packaging Help Produce Shelf Life?

Proper packaging can improve produce shelf life and consequently reduce food waste. Using effective produce packaging can keep produce fresher by offering protection from:

• Environmental elements like oxygen or harmful light
• Biological elements such as spoiling agents and pathogens
• Physical damage including abrasions, mechanical damage, and punctures

How Does Packaging Affect the Ripening of Fruit?

Many types of fresh produce packaging can prevent fruit and other produce from ripening too quickly, increasing their shelf life and reducing food waste. While packaging does not necessarily prevent fresh produce from becoming overripe, proper packaging can protect fruits and vegetables from incurring damage and spoiling before consumers can bring them home and use them.

Which Packaging Material Requires the Most Energy to Produce: Paper, Plastic, Aluminum, or Steel?

Aluminum packaging materials typically require the most energy to produce. However, because aluminum is so lightweight, the per unit energy cost is often comparable to that of other packaging materials. When assessing packaging material production energy costs, it is important to consider factors including:

• The weight of materials and products
• The cost of recycling materials
• The energy saved by recycling materials

Opting for sustainable produce packaging solutions can often save companies money and energy. It is also important to ensure consumers are aware of what materials they can recycle; such messaging can often be included on packaging solutions for optimal impact and performance.

FOOD AND PRODUCE PACKAGING related MACHINERY 

• Adhesive Free Labeling
• Automatic Sleeving
• Multipacking & Clubpacking
• Automatic Chicken Trussing
• Back to the Food Industry Page

HAVE QUESTIONS? 

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