Wine packaging: creativity and sustainability to enhance your product

To celebrate Valentine's Day in the best possible way, the ideal would be to spend a special evening in the company of your partner, even better if accompanied by an attractive and original gift, with packaging that impresses at first sight. Valentine's Day packaging for food products: all the trends. A holiday deeply felt in every part of the world, which deserves the right attention to details, even the smallest ones. Just think of customized packaging for food and drinks: from evergreen chocolate boxes to packaging for cakes and gift sets for sweets and sparkling wines. In short, there are many ideas for a unique and special Valentine's Day packaging, just like your love.   Find out more: "Food packaging: how and what to do to win over customers”   Love, customization, and resistance Valentine's Day gifts are an excellent opportunity to surprise your partner. This year too, many couples will celebrate the holiday of lovers, perhaps with a romantic lunch or dinner, or with delivery and take-away to be enjoyed in the warmth of their own home or in a special location. For this reason, it is necessary for the packaging to perfectly adapt to this special occasion. Specifically, food packaging must preserve products for as long as possible and in the best conditions to maintain their quality and all properties. Therefore, Valentine's Day food packaging must effectively communicate a message of love to better attract the consumer's attention, while at the same time being functional for its purpose, which is to provide maximum protection for the food product inside. But we must not forget that food packaging for Valentine's Day can also be an opportunity to make an eco-friendly gift, choosing packaging made with recyclable or biodegradable materials. In this way, you can also demonstrate your commitment to the environment, as well as to your loved one.   Limited edition packaging One of the trends for Valentine's Day food packaging is the creation of limited edition graphics, perhaps for about a month, creating a product or service limited in quantity and time. Packaging with a completely new look and, perhaps, with a label on which to engrave the name of the loved one. This type of customization manages to create a sense of urgency and desire, but also a loyalty relationship. Color-recognizable packaging For packaging customization, it is preferable to play on the themes of love and friendship. Go ahead then with hearts, roses, and ribbons with bright colors such as red, gold, and pink, the ones most associated with Valentine's Day. These colors are a perfect way to draw attention to gifts and make them more appealing, for instance on a wine bottle package or a box of chocolates. Furthermore, it should be emphasized that it is always recommended to make the product easily recognizable to the customer; therefore, the colors must align with those of the brand to make the brand and the packaging recognizable at first glance, quickly and easily.   Packaging with romantic shapes Romantic shapes (such as heart shapes) are an always appreciated choice for Valentine's Day packaging. These shapes symbolize love and dedication, making them an excellent choice for gifts for your loved one. You can use heart-shaped, rose-shaped, or teddy bear-shaped boxes, or themed text (such as “love”) for chocolates and sweets, also equipped with convenient dividers, always to be finished with Valentine's Day themed labels and decorative ribbons. The important thing is that the packaging communicates love, quality, and refinement of the product at first sight.   Transparent packaging Transparent packaging is among the most popular trends of recent years. Transparent food packaging, in fact, is highly appreciated, even in pastry shops, where the production of special sweets, with ever-new ingredients and colors themed for Valentine's Day, allows the product to be preserved and admired at the same time. By then adding the decorative aspect with Valentine's Day themed ribbons and labels, the product will be further enhanced in shop windows and on store counters. A perfect trend also for artisanal preparations (chocolates, biscuits, jams) but also for small gift baskets to fill.   Packaging for delivery and take-away Many couples decide to spend the holiday of lovers at home. For this reason, it would be an excellent idea to equip yourself with delivery and take-away solutions capable of offering a romantic breakfast, a tasty lunch, or an unforgettable dinner to your customers. From cups and glasses up to heat-resistant lids, from boxes in numerous sizes for sushi, fish, meat, salads, first courses, pastry, and gastronomy products, both hot and cold, up to chocolate and praline boxes and pastry boxes for a very sweet surprise.   In light of what we have seen so far, it is essential for companies and SMEs to invest resources in creating and developing packaging that serves as a tool to increase brand awareness and establish an emotional relationship with the target audience—in this case, couples in love, but also families, friends, and colleagues who wish to communicate their affection. If you need advice on the design and distribution of your food packaging, Cart-One can offer you innovative and eco-sustainable solutions based on your specific needs. Contact us for more information.   You might also be interested in: “Packaging trends 2023: all the new packaging developments”

One of the "hottest" topics of the last period is certainly that concerning the prospects of recycling and recovery of packaging. If at first the COVID-19 pandemic had beneficial effects on the environment, over time this result could easily be compromised by the production of new non-recyclable waste: we are obviously talking about disposable masks and plastic gloves, often abandoned on the street after use. Once again, it is therefore necessary to rethink our lifestyles, in order to benefit the environment and the entire community. What is sustainable packaging? Sustainable packaging is not just a recyclable packaging, but a product conceived and designed by saving on the material used to favor its recycling and recovery fiber through specific actions, which can represent various advantages in terms of environmental protection and savings in productive processes. From the consumers' point of view, paper and glass are considered the best packaging: taking advantage of this consideration, it is necessary to encourage their recovery and recycling. In particular, paper is recognized, at the level of general perception, precisely for its sustainability, recyclability and biodegradability (Considerations from a survey by TwoSides and OnePool). Why is it important to support paper recycling? Paper, like cardboard, has an intrinsic value, being a natural product of plant origin, but it also has its own value linked to the ability to recycle. The percentage recovered, in fact, reserves most of the forest and manage the green heritage in a sustainable manner. The commitment made by companies, but also by ordinary citizens, for the recovery of paper, has been significant up to now: thanks to the actions undertaken by Conai and Comieco, it has gone from being importers of paper to be recycled to exporters. The paper recycling in Italy: where we are? Italy has reached an important milestone at European level, boasting the second place for per capita recycling rate. If only one in three packaging was recycled in the 1990s, today the percentage has risen to 71%, of which we distinguish 81% relating to cardboard packaging alone. With these so important estimates, which bring us close to the 85% threshold (goal to be achieved by 2030 according to European directives), it is clear that we must not only act in terms of sustainable recycling, but also in the design of low environmental impact packaging. The packaging design must not only be recyclable, but it must be designed to be recycled: in this way it will also be possible to promote the improvement of the quality of the recovered waste. Separate collection must be thought for all recyclable materials, for the functioning of the supply chain. In this sense, especially for polylaminate materials, which combine plastic materials with paper, it is necessary to offer the consumer clear and simple indications on how to separate and dispose of this type of packaging. More and more often we talk of "talking packaging", which can offer all the information necessary for proper recycling, even using the most modern technologies, such as the augmented reality app developed by Conai in partnership with Tecnoalimenti. But Italy is also at the forefront in terms of strategies and techniques for recovering polylaminate packaging. Another goal to be achieved is the ability to deepen and further specialize separate waste collection through the division between paper and cardboard compared to beverage containers or other similarly made containers. By acting in this way, logistic routes can be differentiated and waste sent to specialized centers for treatment and recycling. EcoDTool the new Conai project for sustainable design Conai promoted the EcoDtool project to encourage the search for a sustainable packaging design. It is a scientific instrument of simplified analysis that measures the environmental impact. The factors taken into account are energy and water consumption and production-related CO2 emissions. The second phase concerns training, which through the study of the packaging life cycle and improvement actions promotes its sustainability. Finally, two other very important factors are introduced in the end of life, which take into consideration the secondary raw material that can be generated based on the variation of a circularity indicator that refers to reused, recyclable and recycled content. In this sense, CART-ONE has adopted a supply chain that favors the production and minimization of waste through processes that minimize the environmental impact and that adopt solutions for the recycling of production waste.

If we are to find a positive effect caused by the Covid 19 pandemic, we must certainly look for it in the environmental improvement due to the quarantine, which has probably further turned the spotlight on the issues of recycling and recovery. However, the results achieved could be entirely momentary, because in phase 2 and 3 we will deal with what were the side effects of the lockdown on the economy. For example, the decline in oil could overshadow the search for green and sustainable mobility, because it is less convenient; or we will see greater environmental pollution due to the indiscriminate abandonment of masks and gloves on the street, a disturbing reality that concerns small and large territorial realities from North to South. In this sense, we need to work to ensure that environmental and recycling issues are dealt with continuously and constantly. Public opinion and recovery actions in Phase 1 According to a survey conducted by TwoSides, cellulosic packaging is preferred because it is completely recyclable. The same aspect is recognized to glass. In particular, the research shows that the Italian citizen shows greater sensitivity than the other European citizens. Thanks to this sensitivity and the evolution of the system linked to the collection and recycling of paper, we have gone from being importers of paper to be recycled to exporters. Certainly an important role was played by Conai and Comieco through funding and the action of the consortium for the recovery of paper and cardboard packaging. Recycling continued during Phase 1 as well. Post Covid outlook for recycling Covid 19 has brought to world attention the fact that the environment has a delicate balance and that the alteration of environmental changes and climatic upheavals can favor the proliferation of new viruses. It will be important in this context to implement production processes according to the principles of the circular economy. This means starting from the excellent results achieved so far in the field of recycling and implementing them taking into account the entire supply chain: from the birth of the product to its use, recycling and reuse. A crucial role will be played by the funding that will be allocated to improve the plant for the treatment of packaging materials. In addition, a turning point will be determined by the creation of "talking packaging" that offers the end user the opportunity to dispose of waste in the right way, especially when it comes to polylaminates, used most in the food sector. All this will be possible through an augmented reality app. From this point of view, Italy is a promoter of technologies for the differentiation of polylaminate waste. In addition, it is possible to carry out projects that allow, within the collection of paper, to further investigate the differentiation of waste, in particular outside of commercial establishments and in the catering sector. The Post Covid industry: what is meant by Industry 4.0 The Covid experience has deeply affected the industrial sector, placing the emphasis on the issue of a necessary and continuous technological innovation that must be accompanied by resilience and flexibility. In this sense, Industry 4.0 becomes synonymous with efficiency, process integration and sustainability also through the use of agile and remote work. The lockdown gave way to rethink technology by accelerating digital transformation processes to respond to the urgency for change. Smart Manufacturing and Industry 4.0: augmented intelligence Industry 4.0 does not mean just an investment in technology, but a real evolution in understanding the production processes following short, direct and linked chains, allowing for synergistic development. The relationship with customers changes and is oriented towards a new efficiency, communication speed and consistency in the collaboration relationship. In this sense, new research and the development of technologies that exploit artificial intelligence play an important role. While artificial intelligence cannot replace the creativity of the human brain, it offers a wide range of possible applications. The latter, applied to packaging and printing, allow to obtain new results that are increasingly professional and in step with market needs. With this in mind, the promotion of a circular economy becomes desirable, precisely for the implementation of sustainable processes. Corporate sustainability makes it possible to optimize investments and solve concrete problems, without compromising the future of entire generations.