The Future of Food Packaging: The Ultimate Guide
If you walk into any supermarket, you will immediately become aware of packaging. It protects your product, carries your brand, and determines how efficiently you can get food from your production line to the shelf.
Packaging has the following core objectives:
- Keep food safe and extend shelf life
- Comply with regulations and retailer standards
- Be recyclable, reusable or more sustainable where possible
- Run smoothly on automated equipment at the required speed
- Survive transport and shelf handling with minimal damage
- Enable quick format changes as products and promotions evolve
That’s why the combination of packaging materials and automation is now a strategic decision for food producers.
The Core Food Packaging Materials
As a trusted partner to food producers PWR have extensive experience in dealing with different types of packaging materials. Most food producers today work with some mix of the following:
Plastics & Films
Used for: bags, flow-wrap, trays, bottles, pouches.
Pros: Lightweight, excellent barriers, ideal for high-speed automation.
Challenges: Sustainability pressure, recyclability, and the need for gentle handling as films get thinner.
Paper, Cardboard & Carton Board
Used for: cartons, sleeves, boxes, fibre-based trays.
Pros: Strong sustainability story, widely recyclable, great print and branding.
Challenges: Sensitive to moisture and compression; needs carefully controlled handling on fast lines.
Metals (Aluminium & Steel)
Used for: cans, foil, some trays and lids.
Pros: Long shelf life, robust protection, highly recyclable.
Challenges: Heavier and often higher cost, requiring robust but precise automation.
Glass
Used for: jars, bottles, premium lines.
Pros: Inert, premium look and feel, excellent for long-term storage.
Challenges: Heavy and brittle – demanding extremely accurate, gentle robotic handling.
New & Bio-Based Materials
Used for: compostable films, coated papers, cellulose wraps and other eco-friendly packs.
Pros: Help meet sustainability and retailer targets, often plant-based or fully recyclable.
Challenges: Different mechanical and barrier properties; systems need to be tuned to run them efficiently at speed.
Every material choice affects your automation strategy. That’s why it’s important to choose an automation partner that fully understands your product and your business. The right partner will work collaboratively with you, and tailor the solution to your exact requirements.
Looking ahead in the Food Packaging Industry
From working with food producers, our team has noted the following trends:
- More SKUs, more variety – smaller runs, more formats and seasonal products
- Lighter, simpler packs – especially mono-material solutions to aid recycling
- Tighter sustainability targets – from regulators and retailers
- Greater reliance on automation – to address cost and labour pressures
- Data-driven operations – lines monitored and optimised in real time
To keep up, your food packaging automation must be:
- Flexible – modular robots, grippers and tooling to handle new formats
- Easy to use – rapid, repeatable format changeovers
- Gentle and precise – especially for fragile and highly decorated products
- Reliable and measurable – with clear visibility of performance and waste is minimised
This is precisely where PWR focuses its expertise.
PWR designs and delivers high-speed, flexible automated packaging solutions tailored to your products, your materials and your commercial goals. PWR solutions are built around, reliability, accuracy and flexibility.
Producers around the world partner with PWR because we are specialists in food and confectionary packaging with a deep understanding of how multiple materials and formats behave on high-speed lines. Our collaborative approach means that we can consult on packaging concepts and line layouts, trials for new materials and formats, optimisation improvement and standardisation across sites, brands and product families.
Talk to our experts
If you’re currently reviewing packaging materials or simply outgrowing your current packaging equipment, this is the ideal moment to align your packaging and automation strategy.
Book a consultation with PWR and see how our superior solutions can keep your business ahead.