Three Label and Packaging Trends for Food and Beverage Brands

The market for food and beverage products continues the growth it has seen over the last decades, with an expected CAGR of 8.7% from 2022 to 2030, according to Business Wire. With the increasing demand for and sales of these products, companies in this sector are finding themselves with new and greater demands for packaging, leading to label and packaging trends for food and beverage brands.

Requirements for Label and Packaging Trends for Food and Beverage Brands

Products in the food and beverage market require more from their labels than many other consumer products. Although nearly all industries have their own specific concerns with packaging, food and beverage companies may face even more perplexing questions when it comes to creating the right label because of all the regulatory requirements and consumer concerns regarding the things they consume.

One of our areas of expertise at Inovar Packaging Group is label and packaging trends for food and beverage brands. We are a full-service label printer and offer custom solutions for our food and beverage partners, but here are three of the most popular features to solve the unique needs of these brands and products: shrink sleeves, built-in security options, and impeccable on-brand color and quality.

Trend 1: Shrink Sleeves

A shrink sleeve is a 360-degree printed piece of film that shrinks with heat or steam to fit around various shaped containers. Shrink sleeves can be designed to cover an entire product container or only a portion of the container. We can print shrink sleeves both digitally and flexographically, which offers a unique packaging solution for all applications. Because of their 360-degree print surface, shrink sleeves maximize real estate for design and product information.

The food and beverage industries are intensely competitive. Labeling can become a challenge both because of requirements about communication of product information and the vastly different types of packaging required for different types of products. Shrink sleeves can provide the added space needed to include all pertinent labeling information, elevate the impression your design makes, and allow you to maintain brand consistency through all your products. Plus, shrink sleeves can offer built-in tamper proofing if they cover the top of your container.

There is one more extraordinary benefit shrink sleeves offer to food and beverage brands: water and spill-proof packaging! You can learn more about the unique benefits shrink sleeves provide to food and beverage companies here.

Trend 2: Built-in Security

Long a staple of the food and beverage industries, tamper-evident labels and tamper-resistant packaging are simple ways to communicate to customers that your product is safe. This is among the most important label and packaging trends for food and beverage brands.

Tamper-evident labels (or simply tamper labels) act as a barrier to a product. If they are missing or broken, they provide visible evidence to consumers that the product may be contaminated. They can be created from many materials, including various papers and films.

Often a tear in the label itself will work as an indication of tampering, but Inovar can also create tamper labels with perforations to make for easy removal once the product has been purchased. One of the benefits of tamper-evident labels over tamper-resistant packaging is that Inovar can print it on the same material and with your branding so that it matches your primary label perfectly.

While tamper-evident labels are meant to alert a customer if a product may have been breached, tamper-resistant packaging is designed to protect against the opening of a product container. The most common form of tamper-resistant packaging comes in the form of shrink sleeves, which we discussed above. Inovar can create shrink sleeves to cover the entirety of your product with a perforated seal. This is a good option if your product packaging does not have other security features, such as inner seals, to protect it.

Trend 3: Color Consistency

Once you’ve nailed down the colors you are going to use in your label and packaging  trends for food and beverage brands design (and hopefully across your digital platforms and marketing materials too!), maintaining consistency with those colors should be top of mind. Whether you are an established company or a startup, brand consistency is a crucial factor in converting customers and creating brand loyalists. Companies in the food and beverage industries need to be even more attuned to possible deviations from brand consistency with the high stakes that come along with so much market competition.

Our color-matching process begins before your order ever goes to press in our Prepress Department and continues in production as our techs use software, photo spectrometers, and their own well-trained eyes to make sure your brand colors print beautifully and on-brand. Once your labels have been printed, we give each of them yet another pass through our inspection process, where again, both technology and the skills of our technicians are put to use to ensure every aspect of your label is just right.

We fully understand how important maintaining color and brand consistency is for you. We take pride in our process and in the diligence and skill of our team members, eliminating stress and effort for you and your brand. Not only do we make sure your colors are consistent with your expectations, but we also ensure that those colors will be the same from one label run to another.

The food and beverage industries are packed with competition. To make sure that your products are having the greatest impact, partner with a brand that understands your industry and will work with you every step of the way to make sure we’re achieving your print goals! Contact us here to get started!