Flexible packaging manufacturing serves a broad range of industries, creating and producing many different applications. Needs and applications vary widely and it is important to identify qualifications and standards for the best flexible packaging manufacturer for you to work with because they represent such a critical component of your supply chain. We’d like to share examples of the qualifications and standards for three verticals: snacks; pet food and treats; and medical.
Snacks
One of the top industries for flexible packaging is snack food packaging. That being said, the word ‘snack’ implies many different types of foods. For the snack food brand making a wide range of foods, it is important that their packaging manufacturer has many capabilities. Examples of the more important include:
Knowledge of Material Performance Characteristics – Snacks come in a vast array of shapes, sizes and composition and each combination has an optimal packaging barrier requirement to protect the contents. The barrier protection is a direct function of the types of film used to construct the final packaging as well as the gauge of those films and of a foil barrier layer if used. Your flexible packaging manufacturer should be well versed in the performance attributes and manufacturing packaging from the range of films available as raw materials
Closure Options – Packaged snacks can range in size from single serving to family size. Consumers buying larger sizes will be opening and closing the packaging multiple times and expect to find the quality of the product unchanged from the “first chip to the last”. If your decision as a brand owner is to incorporate a closure into the package design, you want the closure to be an easy, convenient feature for the user. The most commonly used is a PTC (press-to-close) zipper. They come in a variety of profiles and your manufacturer should make a recommendation based on the dimensions, con