The two main purposes of packaging are to protect the products it carries and the consumers who buy it, and to promote the products directly and indirectly to the buyers. The packaging must provide protection against any physical or environmental factors that may damage the product. It must also be sealed in some way to prevent people (such as children) who may be injured by the product from stealing or opening it. Safety is the first task.
Protecting products is a relatively easy job. For marketers, the choice of packaging form is a greater challenge. The feeling of glass containers in the hands of consumers often reflects the quality. On the other hand, a flexible bag on one side provides more opportunities to expand and colorful graphics to attract consumers. There are many packaging formats to choose from. But which method is most effective for your product?
Packaging has always been a big challenge for brand owners. However, in the fast-growing marijuana industry, it seems that new products appear every week, and each product needs packaging to provide reliable protection and effective marketing. Therefore, the challenges are particularly severe. The wide variety of these new products - dry, concentrated powders and liquids, edible and pharmaceutical - makes the choice of packaging more complex.
Packaging process
When hemp industry companies choose packaging, they also need to weigh how to most effectively fill the packaging. For example, early large fried dough twist producers filled flower bags or jars with their hands, because delicate flower buds were easily damaged, and the size and weight varied greatly. However, the full package must match the weight shown on the label. Manual packaging may require up to 10 people around a table to weigh taste buds and fill the packaging. Obviously, as demand grows, this packaging operation will soon become unsustainable.
High speed automated packaging, which is common in traditional food and beverage packaging operations, initially seemed not gentle enough in product processing to pack fragile cannabis sprouts, but machine manufacturers worked closely with cannabis companies to develop systems that can effectively automate classification, weighing and packaging processes - and do it faster. Therefore, more and more automated processes are being developed to meet the specific needs of hemp bud packaging.
This also applies to soaking drinks. The mixing and filling process, which may be manual at the beginning of the company, is now becoming automated to ensure the consistency of a larger number of packaged products. In addition, the finished products manually packed in corrugated boxes are now shrink packed by the automatic system.
Just a few years ago, this small-scale local market business just started. Now it needs to become an industrial force in processing, filling and terminal business.
Product changes
According to the research of BDS analytics, in 2017, big fried dough twist accounted for 50% of the cannabis market. By 2019, this proportion had dropped to 36%. This does not necessarily mean that big fried dough twist is less popular with consumers, but it shows that the market is changing. With the introduction of a variety of new cannabis based products, the percentage of flowers as a whole has decreased.
With the emergence of these new forms of products - concentrated drinks and edible food containing cannabis and medical products, each product needs unique packaging to successfully enter the increasingly crowded market. In this market, it must stand out and flourish. Brand owners have to consider packaging from a new perspective, and put more emphasis on brand image and packaging ability, so as to better position products and resist the increasingly fierce competition.
Today, companies that pack large fried dough twist and impregnated products cannot ship them to other states. Once some or all of the products are approved by the regulatory authorities, the processing and packaging capacity of many companies will need to be able to accommodate the rapidly growing production. The products will be transported over a longer distance and will be affected by new environmental factors. Weight will become a cost factor affecting the packaging selection. When evaluating packaging forms and packaging equipment today, the company should have considered the potential challenges in the coming future.
