Packaging industry serves the following purposes in India:
Containment: Most products must be contained before they can be moved from one place to another. To function successfully, the package must contain the product. This containment function of packaging makes a huge contribution to protecting the environment. Faulty packaging (or under packaging) can lead to spillages and result in major losses and serious damage.
Protection and Preservation: Packaging plays a vital role in protecting products as they go from the manufacturer to the consumer. Packaging is designed to ensure that the product reaches the consumer in good condition. The product is protected during transport and distribution; from climatic effects (heat and cold, moisture, vapour, drying atmospheres); from hazardous substances and contaminants; from infestation.
Supplementary Product Protection: Packaging can also provide supplementary product protection. This may be achieved by forms of cushioning such as shredded papers, sheets of corrugated paperboard, foamed plastic or wrappings. Packaging therefore contributes to food safety, quality and nutrition. Packaging technology has made major contributions to advancing food science and food safety and reduction of food spoilage.
Communication: ‘A package must protect what it sells and sell what it protects’. Modern methods of consumer marketing would fail were it not for the messages communicated on the package. The information provided on packaging allows the consumer to make informed decisions on the product’s purchase and use.
Convenience: Packaging plays an important role in allowing products to respond to the demands and needs of modern consumers. Frozen food packs, microwavable containers, wine cardboard casks, easy-open beverage and food cans and aseptic cartons are good examples of convenience packaging. These types of packaging reflect the demand for convenience and quick food preparation in a way that guarantees freshness. Light weight medical devices are packaged in peel-open, pre-sterilized containers designed for easy use in operating rooms, patients’ rooms, or laboratories. In the administration of drugs, unit-dose packaging, solid and liquid, in small containers allows sealed, unused drugs to be returned to stock. Medical packaging also reduces the risk of accidental overdose or improper use by children (child resistant closures).
Environmental Aspects: Packaging reduces the amount of waste going to landfill. Without the benefit of packaging to preserve food, a higher proportion of food would become spoiled and consequently consigned to garbage collection for land disposal. When the food is packaged, the unwanted portions such as skins, outer leaves and trimmings, remain at the processing point where they can be economically recovered and used in the manufacture of valuable by-products.
Reduction of Pilferage: Packaging of a wide variety of products sold from self-service counters is designed to reduce stealing. The product may be sold in a blister package sealed to a large paperboard backing. The large card makes the package more difficult to conceal and steal.
Marketing Trends: Marketing trends are placing increasing emphasis on the look, sales appeal and quality of retail packaging. Packaging helps sell products by providing product differentiation and presentation, greater brand awareness and convenience. The continuously changing demands of consumers will require higher quality graphics and promotional links between graphics and advertising to support brand identities, plus the ability to reflect current consumer trends and images.
