What Food Processors Need to Know About the Future of Food Packaging

1. Food & Packaging Regulatory Compliance

In the last several years various legislation passed in both the food and packaging industries at the local, state, and federal levels. Staying compliant means finding solutions that balance existing and developing requirements while maintaining flexibility so that your operations can pivot when needed.

Many of these laws are targeting label information and packaging materials for food safety, waste reduction, and nutritional data, including the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Section 204¹, banning PFAs in food packaging, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), and California’s SB 45 Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act, and Front-of-Pack Nutrition Labels (FOPNL)².

Tips for navigating these regulations:

• Build a multi-departmental task force to stay aligned
• Stay informed on legislative regulations, including tracking and reporting requirements
• Audit your packaging program and determine next steps to meet current and upcoming legislation
• Research and implement new technology to ensure compliance

2. Sustainable Materials Are Now Mandatory

Sustainability is no longer an option³ – it’s a necessity due to EPR legislation in multiple states. EPR requires packaging producers to not only be responsible for packaging waste disposal but also to use materials that can be recycled, composted, or reused.

Consumers also expect it! In a recent McKinsey & Co. consumer survey⁴, 77% of respondents felt that recyclability was “extremely important” or “very important” as a characteristic when considering sustainable packaging. 

Adapting now will help you gain a competitive edge, stay ahead of compliance deadlines, and save you money in the long term.

Next steps:

• Evaluate the status of your current packaging materials
• Work with supplier partners to analyze costs and materials for performance, protection, and third-party certifications
• Transition high-volume products to more sustainable materials
• Register with the Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO)⁵and prepare reporting data documentation

3. Smart Packaging Technology

Food processors can leverage technology⁶ to boost their efforts and ensure food safety.

Investing in technology that allows for traceability, inventory management, freshness and temperature sensors will help you stay compliant, reduce waste, and provide an enhanced customer experience.

In fact, the global supply chain industry is transitioning from traditional EAN/UPC one-dimensional (1D) barcodes to two-dimensional (2D) barcodes, like QR codes, through the GS1 Sunrise 2027 initiative⁷. 2D barcodes provide much more information from a logistics and compliance standpoint, plus allows you the opportunity to share your brand story and additional product details with consumers from a simple scan with their smartphone.

What you can do now:

• Incorporate smart packaging into your packaging operations for increased efficiency
• Enhance customer experience with interactive information
• Leverage freshness sensors to reduce spoilage & time-temperature indicators (TTIs) to improve cold chain logistics
• Transition to QQ Codes, NFC tags, and/or RFID for inventory control, transparency, and traceability

4. Automation & Efficiency Are Driving Innovation

If you’re struggling to deal with labor shortages, rising costs, and scaling up your production capabilities, automation can greatly benefit your packaging operations.

Automated packaging equipment also allows you to reduce contamination risks, improve food safety, increase product shelf life, decrease repetitive tasks and injuries, and maximize throughput and productivity.

Some food processing and packaging equipment can help with compliance and eliminates manual, repetitive work, such as label & coding equipment, which can apply freshness indicators, temperature-sensitive labels, RFID tags for cold chain monitoring, QR codes, and more.

Benefits of automated equipment:

• Labeling & coding equipment for traceability, product info, and compliance systems integration
• Stretch wrappers & shrink wrap tunnels for storage and shipping protection, reduction in environmental exposure and contamination risks, improved shelf life, and improved efficiency
• Case sealers & erectors for reducing contamination risk, storage and shipping protection, load stability, and decreasing worker injuries
• Ensures compliance with legislation, especially with traceability for high-risk products like dairy, seafood, and meat

5. Cross-Functional Collaboration is Key

Staying on top of changing regulations while optimizing your food processing packaging operations is a coordinated team effort. It requires everyone to align and adapt to changes as they emerge.

Successful packaging strategies require key input from stakeholders across multiple departments—from legal and compliance to procurement to operations to marketing—to ensure that all aspects are considered and executed properly.

How to get started:

• Identify who needs to be on your task force based on your current and/or upcoming packaging projects
• Define individual and team roles and responsibilities and how frequently you’ll meet to collaborate and keep the project on track
• Establish benchmarks and deadlines for ongoing research, activation, and implementation
• Determine what kind of tracking & reporting needs to be managed for compliance