Looking back at the emergence, involvement, advancement, and sales impact of packaging, we observe a significant character that has been played by packaging in the industry. Creative packaging started to expand the horizons of businesses and made them realize the countless adaptations and exploitations they could bring into their trade just by modification of their product packaging. The purpose of packaging started as mere protection, storage, and easy carriage tool for products or to contain them, however, this all changed when industries started industrializing packaging and its processes. Today, this phenomenon has been extended to an extent that packaging sells equal to the product itself; making them two bodies with a single soul. Now, the packaging is as luxurious as the product, as efficient as the services, and more creative than ever. The current markets have come to accept the idea of “packaging sells more than products”, pushing companies to invest more and more day by day.
But how did all these dynamic changes start and where do we find the packaging industry in a few years or a decade from now? Welcome to the art and science of packaging.
It is fair to say that the idea of packaging was mainly birthed by the most basic of human needs, food. With the need for food storage and transport came about different solutions; from hollowed wood logs to gourds and animal skin, the idea of packaging started to get more and more creative and convenient. The evolution came when tree barks were integrated with this primitive idea, which eventually leads to the use of paper and other materials like metals, glass, and finally the most convenient yet environmentally troublesome of all, plastic.
The world is increasingly bent towards technology every passing day. Machines took over and productions came to peaks unforeseeable at the time. When the packaging industry started being fueled with technologies, possibilities became endless. Machines that made their places in the manufacturing process of boxes and other packaging materials, proved efficient and financially healthier in the long run. When the metals and plastics reached their limits the industry took a turn towards the centuries-old idea of using paper and cardboard boxes for packaging. Currently, the survival of any business and trade industry without the involvement of cardboard and other such boxes seems a farfetched idea.
As convenient as packaging presented themselves, especially in the case of plastics, in recent years they have been posing even more troubles as the ghosts of our past have started to haunt us in the shape of environmental crises. Humans have successfully managed to pollute the oceans and lands alike with tons and tons of plastics and other non-reducible materials. Finally, when the whole world found this dilemma ignorable no more, actions are now being taken by giant incorporations and impactful businesses to reduce their waste and be as recyclable as possible. The concept of sustainability and biodegradability has been adopted far and wide, making the future once more hopeful to say the packaging industry has reached its peak, might not be a wrong statement. However, to say this will be the all-time highest point in the innovation of packaging, one could not be more wrong. As we thrive to walk businesses and the environment hand-in-hand our only hopes rest in science.
