Don’t stay rigid! Go flexible and stand out on the shelf

The key characteristic of business success is flexibility. Rigidity, by contrast, is what sabotages a company’s or individual’s ability to react, grow, and expand. So it’s no surprise that packaging industry trends are heading towards flexible solutions. As new technologies advance, the limits of traditionally rigid solutions like plastic, cardboard or glass bottles and boxes are increasingly called into question.

The growing global consensus is that it’s time for the packaging industry to flip its perspective on rigidity and go down the flexible route. Flexible pouches are lightweight, stackable, and adaptable to various sizes and aesthetic options. Now that they have been innovated beyond their single-use origins, they are taking over as the most popular solution in the world of packaging.

Flipping packaging on its head

Over the past two decades, flexible pouching for viscous products has evolved a lot. Since its beginnings as primarily single-use packaging, the most significant introduction to the pouch has been the cap, which enables opening and closing the package with ease, while allowing the product to remain conserved and well-stored. Thanks to the added cap option, pouching technology has successfully expanded across different market segments. 

From Latin America to Ukraine and Russia, capped pouches are the consumer’s first-choice packaging method today. The container is most appreciated for its convenience in storing food products such as mayonnaise, ketchup, salad dressings, and other commonly used sauces. The popularity of the capped pouch is continuing to expand and currently experiencing rapid growth in the United States and in Europe. 

Beyond convenience for the end consumer, sustainability is another key factor in the successful market growth of the capped pouch in this category. Pouches have a lighter environmental footprint than most rigid packaging solutions. In the modern world of e-commerce and worldwide shipping, the pouch is also more desirable due to its lighter weight and robustness compared to rigid packaging.

Stand out from the crowd

The evolution of packaging continues as improved solutions emerge. Volpak’s flexible pouching innovation, the STANDCAP, cancels out all the disadvantages of a rigid bottle in favour of the same premium look and feel. At the same time, the STANDCAP is light in weight and offers easy opening and closure for mess-free dispensing and clean product cut-off. 

Having been the first company to manufacture a machine for pouches with caps, Volpak has been at the lead of flexible packaging innovation from the earliest stages. Today, Volpak remains a benchmark in the industry and in the segment of sauces, particularly thanks to the evolved STANDCAP pouch. The unique inverted shape of STANDCAP helps the product stand out from the crowd, improving brand visibility on a crowded shelf. 

The STANDCAP has also been popular with sauces manufacturers like Guy Gone Keto, Uncle Dougie’s and others, due to the fact that you squeeze out 99% of the product inside, compared to rigid bottles that waste to up to 15% of product on average. Volpak is helping clients globally provide more product per package to their customers than they could with a bottle. So not only is it cheaper to produce flexible STANDCAPs compared to bottles -- it’s the smartest choice for the consumer, too.

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