How to design unique and eco-friendly snack boxes? 8 easy tips

There is a huge variety of mouthwatering snacks in the market, and brands have to add some value to them for getting huge sales. Snack boxes with exceptional structure come handily for food businesses to do. Customizing the strong cardboard is easy for the packaging companies, and hence they provide a design that enhances the presentation of snacks. Some commonly offered custom options by firms are embossing, gluing, scoring, foiling, and die-cutting. Printing this packaging solution beautifully using digital printers provide exceptional print results. It aids in the marketing of different snack items. Using the finishing options like UV coatings lifts the packaging aesthetic and influences the purchase decisions of customers.  

Use organic raw materials

Using plastic packaging is never an option specifically for snack foods. Even the commonly used custom snack boxes made of cardboard material are less sustainable as they result in deforestation. So, avoiding this problem is possible by using crop waste as raw material for the production of this packaging solution. Corn starch is the most effective raw material in this regard, which does not have any economic value otherwise. Some other alternative natural substances are mushrooms, bamboo pulp, and seaweed. They will also reduce the packaging cost along making it sustainable and unique. 

Design single sheet packaging

Every firm adopts different styles for the manufacturing process of the custom printed snack boxes. However, prefer choosing one that offers such designs that are made of a single sheet. A benefit of such material is that there is less involvement of the sticking materials that can contaminate the snacks and can cause health problems. Gable boxes, Chinese boxes, and bakeries are the common designs that are manufactured using a single sheet of cardboard material. Such a design will also fascinate the buyers as they can easily open and close the box without using any kind of sticking material. 

Enhance the reusability 

Promoting reusability is such a factor that will simultaneously benefit in making these cardboard boxes unique and nature friendly. People buy the snack items like fries, nuggets, hot wings, burgers, and much more on a regular basis. Meanwhile, they often experiment with these items in their own kitchen as well. So, design this packaging solution in a way that people could use them later in their kitchen as well to save the crockery from getting oily. This reusability will also provoke people to make massive purchases from your food brand. 

Make your packaging plantable

Have you ever heard about a packaging solution helping in growing trees? Well, it can happen by using some smart tactics. It will promote your brand on solid grounds as a champion of environmental care. It happens by mixing the seeds of the plants into the substances during the stage to process raw material. These seeds lie in the walls of the box and can grow a new tree on dumping into the soil and watering it or simply throwing it in the rainy area. A single box can grow up to 10 new trees. It will make the environment green and your packaging solution more unique.   

Adopt minimalist approaches

Using an excessive amount of material in manufacturing custom snack boxes is not a smart way. Consumption of too much raw material will escalate the budget, and there will be less box manufacturing while even using the excessive raw material. Therefore, choosing a minimalist approach in the design is the best way to deal with it. Revise the size of your box and make it perfect according to the quantity you want to put in it. It will reduce the amount of material being used. It will ultimately reduce the packaging costs and will provide more boxes in a minimum amount of material.  

Eliminate the use of toxic glues

The trend of sustainability is growing more in food packaging, and brands are eliminating the use of plastic materials and other toxic materials used in the production process. Gluing is the fundamental need in this regard for connecting the different parts of custom printed snack boxes with each other. However, there are certain types of adhesives that are made using sustainable and biodegradable substances. So, ensure avoiding the use of such toxic materials, and it will enable you to become the champion of eco-friendly practices promoter.  

Use aqueous-based printing inks

Printing is the basic need of businesses as they use packaging as a marketing medium. Therefore, brands pay special attention to printing to make it lucrative and attention-grabbing. It is an established practice that people throw the packaging at beaches after eating snacks. The inks are mixed with the water when it reaches the oceans, and inks get dissolved in the water. It is not good for marine life. Therefore, using eco-friendly aqueous inks is the best practice to deal with this situation.  

Use paper add-ons for decoration

The embellishment of add-ons is an old practice that brands follow to make their cardboard boxes engaging for buyers. Mostly they prefer using the addition of some decorative objects made of different materials. It also makes the items and brands unique in the market. But, crafting these objects like butterflies or flowers with colorful papers will preserve sustainability. This factor will make the food items fascinating and will provoke people the purchase because of the value addition in packaging. The paper add-ons are also safe for the environment, and such traits provide multiple benefits to the businesses. These were the 8 useful tips that you can follow in the snack boxes to make them sustainable and unique at the same time. So, always compile a list of such unique ideas and select the trending ones to implement in this packaging solution. Prefer partnering with an experienced packaging firm that could implement such ideas perfectly.