Flexible packaging is becoming increasingly popular for shipping and storing a wide range of products and goods in just about every market segment. Peoria Production Solutions, PPS, is a leading provider of secondary packaging services, including flexible packaging.
What Is Flexible Packaging?
Flexible packaging is just what it sounds like, packaging that is flexible, and capable of bending or folding easily without breaking. Examples of flexible packaging materials include various types of polymer or plastic, paper, foil or film to package a product in a bag, pouch, sleeve, roll stock, wrap, overwrap, or any other type of flexible package.
Flexible packaging is replacing rigid types of packaging such as corrugated boxes, plastic, or metal containers for many products across many industries. This includes packaging for products that are stored in inventory, shipped to consumers, or stocked on shelves for direct retail sale.
Benefits of Flexible Packaging
There are many reasons why companies worldwide are switching to flexible packaging over other types of rigid packaging options. Flex packaging provides many benefits to all interested stakeholders, including the company or manufacturer packaging the product, the consumer, and the environment.
Some of the most recognizable benefits of flexible packaging include:
Reduced waste – flex packaging provides a better ratio of product to package, thus eliminating excess space that must be filled with packing material (dunnage) to protect products during storage and shipping. This also eliminates the need for companies to purchase excess packing material, thus eliminating that waste such as bubble wrap, Styrofoam, cardboard, and wads of paper from ending up in a landfill.
Improved sustainability –flex packaging options provide significant value with sustainability benefits realized by retailers, manufacturers, consumers, and the environment throughout the entire lifecycle. Flexible packaging reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and energy usage and contributes less waste to landfills, reducing the carbon impact of packaging.
Transportation benefits – according to the Flexible Packaging Association, flexible packaging significantly reduces the number of trucks required for shipping products. For example, transporting truckloads of glass jars versus flexible pouches can require up to 20 times more truckloads to ship the same amount of product.
Uses fewer resources – lightweight properties of flexible packaging provide substantial benefits over packaging in rigid PET, aluminum, or glass. Products packaged in glass could weigh up to 50 pounds versus just a few pounds of flexible packaging to store the same amount of product.
Many consumer benefits – flex packaging provides a lot of benefits to consumers, such as extending the shelf life of food items, providing resealable pouches, and convenience with microwavable pouches, for example. Flex packages are also easier to store and take up less space in households, whether storing food items in a pantry or gardening items in a garage or outdoor shed.
Increased market share – many consumers make purchasing decisions based on the corporate responsibility of the brand they are buying. Companies can appeal to this increasing segment of buyers with eco-friendly choices to maintain and gain market share. Flexible packaging will continue to increase as more companies and consumers place a greater value on environmentally friendly, sustainable products.
Flex packaging provides these considerable advantages and many others with fewer trade-offs. Companies will continue to make the switch to flexible options for packaging a wide range of products across many market segments.
What Industries Use Flexible Packaging?
Manufacturers and retailers in various industries are using flexible packaging choices or preparing to make the switch. Some examples of companies that realize the benefits of flex packaging include:
- Food and beverage
- Pharmaceutical packaging
- Dairy and nondairy items
- Confectionery products
- Lawn and garden products
- Chemicals
- Clothing
These are just some examples of products that are realizing the advantages of flex packaging over plastic, glass, corrugated or aluminum options. You might notice bags of cereal on the shelf available for purchase when in years past, we only saw cereal in boxes. Drink pouches have been around for a while and save a considerable amount of material while still providing safe and fresh beverages for consumption. Pouches weigh considerably less than glass or aluminum cans, making shipping easier and storage more convenient for consumers.
Peoria Production Solutions is experienced in providing secondary packaging solutions to repackage a wide range of products in flexible packaging, such as fitness drinks, protein shakes, and many other products. We meet the requirements of FDA-required imprinting of lot codes and expiration dates on food and beverage products and offer shrink wrapping and palletizing solutions to ship products according to your specifications.
PPS is a Flex Packaging Provider
PPS is recognized as a leader among contract packaging companies, offering secondary packaging solutions, including flex packaging, to companies of all sizes. We offer high-quality packaging, wrapping, filling, and bagging services to a wide variety of industries. We utilize automated equipment such as auto bag filling, auto labeling, a heat sealer, heat tunnel, shrink sleeve, and vertical continuous band sealer with a stand and hot stamp imprinter for efficient packaging solutions.
Our modern, state-of-the-art facility provides plenty of capacity to set up dedicated packaging stations to meet exact customer specifications. We follow a strict quality policy as part of our ISO9001:2015 registration with a dedicated staff committed to meticulous attention to detail. Our Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system provides complete lot code traceability for full accountability of all customer-supplied materials.
PPS leads the industry in secondary packaging solutions and offers a wide range of production solutions, including packaging, wrapping, kitting, assembly, commercial sewing, and more. We have been helping companies meet their production goals with cost-efficient production solutions for more than 80 years. Contact us to learn how to improve your packaging process from an experienced, flexible packaging provider.