Product wrapping plays an essential role for businesses. Properly chosen packages simplify transportation, ensure product integrity on the way to store shelves, prolong shelf life, and improve marketing by attracting consumer attention. Thus, nowadays, product covers are far from being just a “means to pack food”. Today, it plays many roles simultaneously.
When talking about dried fruits and nuts, these products require particular storage conditions due to their nutritional properties. Nuts contain lots of fat that can result in going rancid if storage conditions are violated. Moisture, sunlight, and oxygen are the main enemies of dry food. Thus, it is essential to ensure that the wrappers protect nuts and fruits from these environmental factors.
Key Enemies of Dried Products
Trying to preserve the nutritional properties and taste of dried food, as well as maintain freshness, safety, and quality, pay particular attention to the following factors:
- Light. Discoloration and accelerated degradation of food are the key impacts of light on products. Also, nuts can get rancid under the influence of direct light. This is why many producers stick to using non-transparent packaging of dried fruits and nuts.
- Oxygen. When oxygen enters dry food covers, products oxidize, while their flavor degrades. The influence of oxygen on nuts causes them to become soft, bitter or rancid. Flavor and color also degrade.
- Moisture. The water vapor barrier allows for preserving food texture, smell, taste, and freshness. When the barrier (the integrity of the packaging) fails, the quality and freshness of products decrease.
Thus, when designing covers, manufacturers prefer such dry fruits packing materials that can provide reliable resistance to these factors.
A wide catalog of quality packaging for dry fruits is provided on the website of Uniflex manufacturer. The company is involved in the production of durable and quality packages for all sorts of products, including dried food.
Best Packages for Nuts and Dried Fruits
Now, let’s get down to the available types of covers on the modern market and highlight the most effective solutions for packing dry food. Note that manufacturers classify wrappers according to several parameters.
Design
Depending on the design, covers fall into:
- transparent;
- solid -colored ones.
As mentioned above, most businesses prefer the latter option since it provides better protection from light. Moreover, solid- colored wrappers provide more opportunities for marketing purposes and branding. But, the cost of packaging production is higher.
Transparent wrappers increase customer loyalty since they can see what is inside bags. Usually, the cost of transparent cover production is lower, which reduces the price for such goods. But, such bags can be easily punctured, which will lead to food spoiling.
Form
Another approach classifies dried fruit packaging taking into account its form. Here, they distinguish the following solutions:
Stand-up pouch packaging – Doypacks. This is one of the most popular classes of wrappers for dried fruits and nuts. Wrappers are flexible and resalable. The main benefits of such packages are:
- perfect resistance to environmental threats;
- degassing valves for maintaining optimal conditions inside packages;
- the possibility of re-opening and re-closing: the freshness of the product is preserved even after opening the package;
- shape retention.
Stand-up pouches perfectly fit store shelves and attract consumers with convenient design. Such bags are easy to hold and the design is customizable to the demands of any business.
Gusseted bags
This type of dry fruit packing cover is perfect for bulk products. The line of sizes is huge and allows packing from 100-200 grams of product up to several kilograms of dried snacks. Such bags features euro slots, breathable valves, and handling holes. But since they do not take shape, the products can crack during transportation.
Plastic or glass jars
These containers are also ideal for large volumes of bulk nuts and fruits. Yet, the main con of such jars is that they do not protect the content from direct sunlight, which can lead to shattering. Moreover, glass jars are rather costly. As for positive moments, this class of containers is quite sustainable, as can be used many times. Despite that, it’s rather difficult to recycle.
Custom boxes
Such containers look fancy and come as the perfect packaging for gift-giving purposes. Thus, many vendors give preference to them. Customized boxes with their attractive design help to increase consumer interest in the product. But, drawbacks include higher cost, poorer protection from outside impacts and sudden shocks, and greater storage requirements. Thus, usually, custom packing bags for dry fruits are packed together with another sturdy packaging.
Non-resealable pouches
This is the cheapest option for storing dried products. Producers tend to use it to reduce the expenses on the production. However, such wrappers are less attractive and have poor qualities in terms of convenience and preserving freshness after opening. It is impossible to reseal them after the integrity of the package is violated. So, repeated closure will not be possible.
Thus, it turns out that resealable stand-up pouches serve as the best packaging option for dry fruits. These bags provide reliable protection from environmental influences and preserve food freshness, aroma and taste. At the same time, they provide much space for branding and applying logos and marketing information.
Dry food is sensitive to external impacts. The environment can significantly spoil the taste and quality of food and reduce its shelf life. Modern enterprises can order any type of wrapper for their products. But, when deciding on a suitable kind of cover, they should keep in mind its sustainability, attractiveness to customers and ease of handling.