Put a Spring in your Step!

Why the Packaging Industry Must Innovate.

By Farouk Forster, Marketing Manager, Springfield Solutions

Innovation in the current climate is essential. Businesses are driven by consumer behavior and consumer demands constantly evolve. Goods are expected to be delivered quicker, to be cheaper and for the companies that produce them to be more sustainable. In the packaging world we’re seeing demands for packaging to be more convenient, and to offer an ‘experience’ – difficult to achieve when trying to deliver sustainable goods quickly and at a lower price. With these factors seeming to compete, we must continually innovate in order to survive as a business and innovate well to thrive.

This drive for innovation extends beyond our industry, with so many competitors throughout each market sector, and startups filling niche industry gaps. Where traditionally companies would look to cut down on costs in packaging, now it’s hard to stand out on the shelf, and companies are looking to invest in more premium packaging to grab the attention of consumers. In order to cut costs in packaging, companies are instead looking for a way to create a premium look cost-efficiently.

Searching new solutions

This means looking for a new solution. It’s hard to find the balance between premium, cost-efficient and eco-friendly. There’s a perception that the more premium packaging, especially with metallic embellishments, isn’t sustainable. Traditionally, packaging is a tricky element of the supply chain to navigate in terms of sustainability, but there are an increasing number of new technologies being developed to help deliver these benefits to customers.

All it takes is a drive to innovate, a little research and a small leap of faith. With many brands now committed to net zero targets, it’s up to us to find ways to help them meet these.

In our search for a new technology that would allow us to meet these challenges, we found ACTEGA’s ECOLEAF technology, and after some research started our partnership with ACTEGA as their first digital print partner for the ECOLEAF machines.

ECOLEAF will provide many tangible benefits to our customers, as we’ll be able to offer embellishments with a premium look at a reduced cost by being more efficient with the materials we’re using.

While taking on new technology is always a risk, it’s also an essential part of business, and without taking these small leaps of faith, businesses will stagnate, and customers will eventually migrate to a competitor offering a larger range of options and more cost-efficient production. Being the first to take the plunge means you build experience with the new technology faster, giving you a competitive edge and bringing along new customers. For us, taking ECOLEAF on has demonstrated how much customers appreciate innovation, as we’ve already had several big brands expressing a serious interest in the technology.

Game-changer

ECOLEAF could be a massive game changer in the industry, demonstrated by the level of interest we’ve had. It presents an opportunity for massive innovation within the industry and a great offering for eco-friendly embellishments.

With the demand for premium packaging on the rise, innovations like these are vital to companies like us looking to get ahead of the curve and develop their embellishment range to have more options, textures, and finishes for customers.

In order to be a world leader in the supply of innovative, sustainable digital packaging assets, we’re always pushing the boundaries of innovation, and leading the market with new technologies, whether it’s on our print floor or on the media side with connected and interactive packaging. As packaging providers, it’s important to remember that our role in the industry is all about providing a better service and offering to brands, allowing them to convey these benefits to consumers - and we can’t do this without taking a few, carefully calculated, chances.