How to Find the Optimal Packaging for Your Product
Packaging is one of the largest cost factors. Developing the optimal combination of pack style and material is a challenge.
Any industrial consumption product: Biscuits, crackers, chocolate- or muesli bars, cereals etc., must be packed in order reach the customers.
If we analyse the situation in most biscuit companies, we see:
The bakers are the specialists to create new products. Their partners are marketing people who analyse the trends in the market, who know the target group in the market they want to conquer.
Together they define: Market segment: premium, medium or low-price segment, flavour, calories, etc and they define the customer group: gender, age, etc. Based on this they define what the product should look like, taste etc.
Based on this the bakers define the ingredients, develop the recipe and the production process; the settings of the different machines and all the relevant procedures to make the product they have in mind.
Packaging generally is low on the priority list. For both parties, packaging is not their specialism. Marketers are aware that the presentation of the product is vital. Therefore, the packaging design is an area that gets a lot of attention. But unfortunately, there is more a pack than design.
Packaging is one of the largest costs in the total production process. Exact data are not available, but based on my experience with other products, I rank the production cost factors as flows:
- Raw material / ingredients
- Packaging material
- Labour cost.
- Energy and financial cost
I cannot give numbers as these vary a lot from case to case. But packaging material cost reaches easily 20-25%, while labour cost may be between 15 and 20%. This labour cost can be split in process and packaging. When you do that, you most probably will find that the largest share of labour cost is in packaging. It is important to define the real distribution of these costs for your products to realize the importance of packaging.
You also will notice that the financial cost translated into production cost is minimal
>Smart Cost Optimization in Biscuit Manufacturing
Competition does force any producer to minimize where possible costs. Cost reduction in raw material may change the properties of the product. That is the last you want to touch. That leaves packaging material and labour as possibilities for savings.
Improving the efficiency of the production - and packaging processes will reduce labour. The packaging material may influence presentation, look and feel, shelf life etc. Any change may affect your sales, but it offers the biggest saving potential.
When introducing a new product, a certain packaging style is selected. With this choice the properties, but also the cost of the pack is defined. Later savings in packaging material do not change the basic cost structure embedded in the choice of the pack style. Therefore, the choice of the pack style defines to a large extent the cost structure. This choice should be an integral part of the product development process.
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TechTalks Discussion
Flow wrapper positioning
I am moving premises shortly and want to build the ideal layout for my production and packaging that will also be BRC compliant.The last "food" stage will be lifting biscuits off trays and onto the flow wrapper in-feed. In the new premises, if I make a hatch for the flow wrapper, it could deliver the biscuits to the packaging area, but then the production room wouldn't be sealed. If the flow wrapper is in the bagging area, I would be carrying unwrapped biscuits out of the production area for bagging. What is the ideal layout for moving from finished biscuit to bagged biscuit?
Is it possible to add some kind of material to increase the severity of the biscuits?
I make salted biscuit sticks. But I want to increase the strength of biscuit sticks. Is it possible to add some kind of material to increase the severity of the biscuits?
The product packed in aluminum foil went rancid
Cookies that have sesame and wheat germ are packed in aluminum foil and went rancid in just 3-4 months. any solutions towards this? should I introduce nitrogen packaging or there some technique to treat these ingredients?
Total Cost of Ownership and Net Present Value
I came across the recent article on Total Cost of Ownership on packaging machinery, very interesting article indeed, however, it did not show clearly how you can evaluate between two suppliers which one has the best option given a more complex real-life situation?
Biscuit Packaging Automations
What kind of automation can be done in the biscuit packaging section right from the oven till the end of the line (packaging)?
Regarding the shelflife
But the biscuits are getting soft after a month of packaging. Though its life is 6-8 months. So is there any chemical I can use to increase its shelf life?
Packaging machines for biscuits
Which machines are the best packaging machines for biscuit packaging keeping in view less workers and machine automatization?
Material combination of Flexible laminated films for biscuit packaging
How can we determine the correct material combination of laminates ( Type of the laminates & thickness of the layers) are being supplied by the suppliers?
Eg : 20 micron BOPP + 25 micron MCPP
