What do you mean by smart packaging its types and its importance?

Smartphones, smart cards, smart watches and whatnot? As we humans have progressed in life, we have found and invented things that have made our life easier. There are a few things that have grown as fast and as impressive as technology.

Technology has made our life fast-paced. All of us have felt the impact of this in our life. Technology has helped us with many fields like medicine, automobile, education, and many other fields. One of the fields that have improved drastically over]r time is the packaging industry.

Packaging was first introduced due to the need to keep our product safe from external damage but now it has become a$1021 billion. As technology has helped to make everything better, it has helped in creating innovative packaging.

This blend of technology and packaging has created a new genre that is called innovative packaging which is still in its early stage. Smart packaging or innovative packaging is believed to have immense potential.

In this article, we will talk about smart packaging: what it is, its types as well as the benefits that one gets from using them.

What is smart packaging?

Smart packaging is the latest technology in packaging that not only observes the condition and the environment of the products but also acts on unfavourable changes that occur inside it.

What are the different types of smart packaging?

Now that we know that smart packaging is. We can talk about the different types of smart packaging. As we all know that technology in itself, is a complex thing in itself. To understand it better we have divided it into three different parts which are three different aspects of smart packaging.

1. Active packaging

Active packaging can be understood as something that gives us an alternative to traditional packaging. Active packaging has a bright future in many fields of packaging. Active packaging is mainly concerned with the food industry as it can monitor and indicate the changes that have occurred in the product.

For example, in this field, Nanotechnology can play a vital role in improving the current service. There are several different ways that nanotechnology can be used in the packaging industry. We can understand the potential of this with the help of two examples

This example will show the potential of nanotechnology in the field of food packaging. As we know that the most challenging aspect of food packaging is to keep the food fresh and have long shelf life without losing its nutritional value.

Here, comes nanotechnology to solve this issue, in scientific research it is observed that using a film of nanoparticles has shown that it improves the shelf life of the products by eliminating the bacteria that spoil the food.

With the help of this example, we got to know about the potential of active packaging as well as nano packaging.

2. Intelligent packaging

This is the kind of packaging that the packaging industry can benefit a lot from. Active packaging as the name suggests works by communicating the condition of the product inside the packaging. It can help to increase food safety as well as improve sanitization and hygienic practices.

This type of packaging is considered intelligent as it can monitor, sense, detect, and trace the temperature, ph level, ripeness etc. Intelligent packaging uses many different types of things like biosensors, gas sensors, temperature sensors, chemical sensors etc which will in turn help with indicating the freshness, temperature, time, change in colour etc.

3. Connected packaging

Connected packaging deals with the informative side of the packaging and refers to the engagement of customers with the brand with the help of smartphones and other applications for the engagement of a customer.

In these modern times, we know the importance of data and information. Every step we take and every click we make we are dealing with the information whether it is uploading, downloading or requesting the data.

With the rise of an information-oriented generation, people getting more and more aware as well as attentive towards the information about how our product is being sourced from. This need for information between the consumer and seller has given rise to connected packaging.

The best example of this would be a QR code from which you can access all the information about the product like its origin, how it is made, and other things.

You must have seen this in the packages that you order from the eCommerce website, they have customised boxes and printed QR code which gives you exciting offers or more information about the brand and company. Customizing the boxes with QR codes could be a good move as a new marketing tactic.

Not just that custom packaging can also help with a lot more things like customer loyalty, to know more about it, you can read this blog about it.

What are the benefits of smart packaging?

In the above section, we have talked about the different types of innovative packaging now, we will talk about the benefits that we get from having smart packaging.

Smart packaging not only shows us the problem and the challenges faced by them but also provides the solution towards it. We have a list of benefits that smart packaging provides.

Efficient tracking

This is one of the most used features of smart packaging. Being able to track our consignment helps us to get higher efficiency in our shipments. Not only this helps in timely deliveries but also helps with better customer experience.

And in a business, it is extremely important to have good customer service so that your brand image is not compromised.

Prevent food waste

We have talked about intelligent packaging that will let us know about the condition of our package. This could be used by the food industry to make sure their product is fresh and good for consumption. Like using sensor stickers that will tell you about the temperature, colour, freshness etc.

With the help of these people will know which one to use first before it gets spoilt.

Transparency

Transparency is very important for the customer as well as the brand because the person will know about the products that they are using or consuming. This transparency will ensure that the brands and companies are using good quality materials. The customers will trust the brand more and this will help to improve the relationship between them.

Conclusion

We have reached the end of this article which is about smart packaging which includes what it is and its types. Smart packaging is a solution-based approach towards the problems which are currently faced by the packaging industry.

Smart packaging has other components, which are intelligent and active packaging. One helps us to indicate the changes and the other one helps with delaying the process of the item being spoilt.

Then we talked about the benefits that smart packaging will give us and that’s how we have completed this article.

Thank you for reading till the end.