How will food packaging continue to evolve in 2025 and beyond?
This article explores how continued advancements in materials, best practices, and design techniques are opening up new possibilities for food manufacturers to deliver a superior customer experience.
From improving sustainability to microwaveable products, and keeping up with the growing popularity of fresh grab-and-go food products, packaging design will continue to play a key role in meeting changing market needs.
What’s Next in Food Packaging Design?
The fundamentals of food packaging design remain the same as ever: protect food from spoilage and the outside elements, provide a shape and size that fits consumers' needs, communicate key information about the product, and provide appetizing aesthetics that boost shelf appeal and elevate branding. As we explore below, food packaging design in 2025 and beyond will face the challenge of aligning these long-standing goals with fast-growing priorities like microwaveable containers and sustainability.
With food products ranging from soups to fresh salads to frozen meats, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for food packaging. Effective food packaging design requires recognizing which materials and features best serve the unique needs of each individual food product.
Trend One: Promoting Shelf Life for Fresh Foods and Beyond
Keeping food fresh, tasting its best, and free from spoilage is always a primary goal for food packaging. With the explosion of popularity in both fresh and pre-prepared food products (including “grab-and-go” options and direct-to-consumer delivery packaging), packaging design to promote shelf life is more important than ever.
Depending on the food product, a number of different design considerations may be important to shelf-life, including:
- Air and/or water-tight design to prevent spills or contamination.
- Non-permeable materials that minimize oxygen exchange. Limiting spoilage due to ethylene gases can not only help protect the food inside but also prevent foods like fruit and vegetables from spoiling nearby produce.
- Tamper-resistant design to protect food on the shelf and during the delivery process. Packaging Technology Today notes that “the paradigm shift towards contactless delivery methods, driven by the rise of e-commerce, continues to reshape packaging strategies in 2024. Doorstep drops and locker systems are now commonplace, emphasizing the need for packaging that ensures both security and tamper-evidence.”
More broadly, the materials used in food packaging can directly contribute to fresher food and extended shelf life. For example, the popular plastic PET repels microorganisms. When food products call for additional steps to prevent spoilage, food preservation techniques like high-pressure processing can kill or deactivate the microorganisms that cause food to go bad. Our article here takes a deeper look at the HPP process and how it works.
Trend Two: Refined Food Packaging Branding
Food product packaging is not only functional but also an aesthetic representation of the underlying brand. More manufacturers are recognizing that packaging provides a unique opportunity to reach new audiences and function as part of an integrated strategy for brand storytelling.
Unique, colorful, and personalized designs can help boost shelf appeal, help a brand stand out amongst competitors, and ultimately contribute to a satisfying customer experience. Italian Food News provides a helpful breakdown of stylistic trends here, including bold characters, eye-catching typography, distinctive shapes, and rustic aesthetics.
It is also important to recognize that effective food packaging branding concerns are deeply intertwined with all of the trends discussed in this article. For example, customers will rely on packaging labels to evaluate the sustainability and nutrition of their purchase, and keeping food fresh is important for presenting the brand in a positive light.
Trend Three: A Boom in Microwaveable Food Packaging
Microwaveable food has offered consumers a convenient, quick food option for many years. Today, with a rapidly expanding world of microwaveable food choices, this product category is growing faster than ever. Market research suggests that this market is growing at nearly 6% annually (and is expected to continue through at least 2031).
Refinements in microwaveable packaging design will continue to be instrumental in supporting this growth by ensuring a positive customer experience for an ever-growing array of foods. In addition to selecting a microwaveable-ready material, for example, proper lidding is essential for preventing spillage for liquid food products (and makes it easy to seal leftovers).
Our article here provides a deeper look at the microwaveable food market and the most critical design elements for microwave-safe food packaging.
Trend Four: Incorporating Sustainability in Food Product Packaging Design
“As time moves on from the outbreak of COVID-19, sustainability pressure is building once again. Manufacturers and retailers of fast-moving consumer goods continue to innovate new packaging formats to improve circularity, particularly focusing on recycled content such as post-consumer resin.” – McKinsey & Company Report on Sustainability in Packaging
From consumer preferences to public policy, pressure continues to build for more sustainable options in food packaging design. Sustainable food packaging options can help both:
- Reduce the total amount of waste circulating in the environment. Learn more about closed-loop recycling in our article here.
- Reduce the consumption of energy and other resources in the manufacturing process to mitigate the impact of climate change.
Alternative materials for food packaging are the subject of Intensive research and development work, with potential future options including food packaging made from seaweed, algae, and other biodegradable materials.
While these new materials have exciting potential, advances in recycling have also opened economical options for reducing waste using traditional packaging materials such as paper and plastic. For example, post-consumer regrind (PCR) plastic is already a proven, food-safe option that can be flexibly adapted to different packaging needs by using different portions of PCR and “virgin” (non-recycled) plastics.
Many food manufacturers are already working proactively to incorporate greater quantities of PCR material (even up to 100%). Moving forward, PCR and other sustainability solutions for food packaging will only become more critical to meeting customer desires and regulatory requirements.
Learn More About Custom Packaging Design for Food
All of the trends highlighted in this article will create new challenges and opportunities for food manufacturers. While innovative packaging design will be crucial for keeping up with changing consumer preferences, it will also create new opportunities to elevate quality (and even develop whole new categories of products).
Facing this need for multi-faceted advancements in package design, more and more manufacturers will find value in custom packaging. While it requires some planning and foresight, a custom design process is the best way to balance complex design concerns ranging from recyclability to opacity. An experienced custom packaging vendor should be able to provide hands-on support from ideation to final production, streamlining the customization process.
Explore how Lacerta works with customers to deliver custom plastic packaging solutions, backed by end-to-end support including prototyping, production, and final release
