The increasing role of Smart Packaging

Smart packaging is still evolving, but we cannot ignore its importance.

Agile businesses are looking at packaging as a possible holistic solution to transform the way they deliver, sell, and use products. Innovative smart packaging applications are being embraced by market leaders across industries who are trying to leverage the benefits of smart packaging solutions to enhance their operations and at the same time provide an unparalleled customer experience.

Inventory & lifecycle management

Smart packaging can provide solutions to common supply chain challenges including sourcing raw materials from suppliers, managing the supply chain, and delivering products to the final customer. With smart packaging solutions, companies can gain real-time ability to track and trace the exact product location in the production and distribution cycle. It also offers benefits including agility, quality and safety, and sustainability.

Protection against internal and external threats

Packaging of a product often acts as a valuable layer of defence against both internal and external threats affecting the product integrity. In the food retail industry alone close to 30% of food products are known to be discarded due to spoilage. Smart packaging can help avoid such counterfeits and combat excessive losses for companies. By using advanced technologies such as block-chain, brands can create a secure, unalterable record of a product’s origin as well as the path to market.

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12 Profiting from Smart Packaging Optimization for transport and efficiency in logistics

Perhaps this advantage will become the main driver for the adoption of smart packaging systems. This technology will be able to avoid innumerable unnecessary costs for distributors and traders of products. For example, it is possible to generate a package that provides interactive information on how it should be handled and stored to ensure product safety. In addition, this technology also makes it possible to track packages more accurately and comprehensively. Smart packaging thus becomes a perfect complement to the most advanced transport simulation systems to move forward and ensure that products arrive safely at their destination.

Improved security for the user

Smart packaging will be particularly useful in ensuring the safety of perishable products belonging to the food and pharmaceutical industry. This is the case of smart labels that warn of possible problems during the distribution cycle that compromise the product (if the cold chain is broken, for instance), or announcements regarding expiration dates.

Boosting differentiation and marketing

This technology will also bring branding and marketing advantages. The truth is that the trend is towards the search for sustainability in packaging and the industry is already setting the pace to generate more minimalist packaging and generate less waste. In this sense, smart packaging systems will allow companies to continue to surprise and make a difference.

Final customer satisfaction

Smart packaging technology is capable of providing more complete and comfortable experiences for the end customer, which results in greater satisfaction and loyalty.

It will go one step further than Amazon’s Frustration Free packaging, which tries to eliminate the complications of opening a package and the so-called ‘wrap rage’.

Smart packaging systems in the food and pharmaceutical industry

The application of smart packaging technology will be especially useful in those industries where products are particularly fragile to environmental factors or are directly related to the health of the final consumer. This is the case in the food and pharmaceutical industries, where optimizing packaging means ensuring that the user receives a product that is safe for consumption.

Thus, with regard to the application of active packaging or intelligent packaging in food, some examples illustrate its usefulness:

• Packages capable of communicating that there has been a break in the cold chain. • Interactive labels that provide information on the origin of the product or possible incompatibilities (with regard to allergens, for example). • Proposal of personalized recipes to the consumer once the package has been opened. • Possibility of reducing food waste through real time information on the state of the product. • Application of the MAP (Modified Atmosphere Packaging) system, a packaging technology that modifies the atmosphere surrounding the product to ensure its correct conservation.

Interactivity in Smart Packaging

The pharmaceutical industry is a sector that could also benefit from interactivity in smart packaging. Some ideas for this sector include a technology that is able to warn the consumer about when their next intake is due, whether they are misusing the medicine or to warn the family doctor of this consumption. In addition, it highlights the importance of applying innovative protective packaging materials, capable of keeping the product in the right condition.

The future of packaging systems is getting closer and closer. If you are interested in knowing how to protect your goods or want to consult about the advances in testing systems for packaging please contact us. At Safe Load, we are international suppliers of packaging testing solutions for the optimization and validation of packaging.

For more information go to www.safeload.com