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Smart packaging is the general term for a category of packaging that, while retaining its packaging function, "recognizes" and "judges" environmental factors, is able to sense, monitor, locate and record product-related information, and achieves efficient and convenient information exchange and interaction with users. According to the latest report from global technology and consulting company Technavio, the global smart packaging market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 8%. Experts predict that in the future, pouches produced with smart packaging technology will account for 20%-40% of the total number of food and beverage packaging pouches.

Smart packaging market keeps expanding

At present, the situation of food and medical safety in China is relatively severe, and industry transformation is imperative. Therefore, we urgently need to improve intelligence in packaging and make extensive use of various means to ensure product safety in the application industries. Smart packaging is a powerful measure for ensuring safe production, with huge room for development. Smart packaging has already received sufficient attention and development in developed countries, while in China, the research and development of smart packaging and its application in various fields are still at an initial stage. But it cannot be denied that, from another perspective, although China's application of smart packaging still lags behind developed countries, China's smart packaging market still has broad profit space waiting to be tapped.

Faced with such a huge blue ocean market, the development and application of numerous types of smart (functional) packaging in China have only just begun. Zhong Bo said, "We can look at the supermarkets, convenience stores and pharmacies around us: among the dazzling array of flexible packaging for food and medicine, how much is smart packaging and functional packaging?" He explained that in terms of functional packaging, modified atmosphere packaging and aroma-releasing packaging in China are relatively mature, and gas-adsorbing packaging (moisture-absorbing, ethylene-absorbing, oxygen-absorbing) generally takes the form of sachets and involves a low level of technology, whereas gas-adsorbing packaging developed abroad can already blend non-toxic adsorbents into the film resin itself. Other functional packaging and many smart packaging products are still almost blank in China.

In addition, among these smart packaging products, RFID (radio frequency identification) electronic tags are an area relatively familiar to the Chinese public. The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the government's strengthened supervision of medicines and food have all driven China's use of RFID electronic tags, which are widely applied in industries such as logistics, packaging, retail and manufacturing. Smart identification technology will be applied in some fields (such as medicines and food), but China will not yet become a major consumer of RFID electronic tags, because given the consumption level of the general public, smart identification technology has not yet entered the daily consumer market of ordinary people.

Smart packaging keeps bringing new insights to brands

Looking across the market, it is not hard to find that many food and beverage companies are using more augmented reality (AR) labels in their designs. Technology influences packaging design, and with the adoption of packaging formats and design technologies, brands are adding extra dimensions to their packaging, which helps attract and inform consumers.

AR labels can help consumers learn the information provided by a brand by scanning images or labels on product packaging, and consumers can activate or view them by scanning the AR label with a smartphone. Experts point out that companies are using AR and other packaging design elements to gain consumer satisfaction, to build trust by providing information to consumers, and to help brands create their identity and further build relationships with fans.

As technology advances, the boundary between reality and virtuality is becoming increasingly blurred. For example, Coca-Cola cooperated with an illustration company to bring its bottles to life with AR technology, and Coca-Cola said in a statement that consumers can scan the code on the bottle to view exclusive animations and enter competitions. Nongfu Spring carried out a crossover collaboration with NetEase Cloud Music, with the bottle body using vinyl records from NetEase Cloud Music to form the Nongfu Spring landscape logo. The bottle body uses AR technology: after users scan the vinyl record pattern, an immersive starry sky scene automatically appears on the phone screen, and tapping the planets that appear pops up a random music review.

RFID and near field communication (NFC) technology are also among the technologies used in smart packaging. Through this technology, companies can fully safeguard goods from production to sale, and packaging can tell consumers where they have been and where they are, what is inside, whether the product is genuine, and whether it has been opened.

With the addition of smart labels, brands can tell stories in a new way while guaranteeing authenticity. Take the electronic label on Dongpeng Special Drink as an example: unlike Master Kong, PepsiCo and others that use laser printing technology to display the most essential product information on the bottle body, Dongpeng's launch of China's first electronic-label functional beverage solves the problem of brand information delivery through the digital means of "one code per bottle". By scanning the QR code on the cap, consumers can clearly see information such as the product's ingredients, effects, production date, batch and manufacturer. While meeting the dual needs of brand information delivery and low-carbon environmental protection, it also opens up a channel for direct dialogue between the brand and consumers, making interaction stronger.

Multiple factors constrain the path of smart packaging development

High cost has always been one of the main factors hindering the development of smart packaging. Zhong Bo said that the popularization and application of technologies such as chips that can be used in packaging and printable antennas and circuits are not as simple as traditional printing, and that the technologies concerning how to install and manage the relevant infrastructure, how to place electronic readers, and how to retrieve, use and store tag information are complex and expensive. Therefore, product transformation is not something all domestic packaging and printing companies can achieve, and at present they still lag to a certain extent in investment in smart packaging technology, recruitment of talent, and upgrading of equipment and materials.

At the same time, our research on packaging raw materials is relatively weak. Aside from the poor performance of the materials themselves, many products still rely on imports, which also means that the later practical application of technological upgrading cannot be used on a large scale. Moreover, domestic companies have limited research and development capabilities: only a few large packaging companies have R&D capability, and they rely on universities or research institutes. With China's smart packaging market being small and the public's acceptance insufficient, how to increase profits and produce efficiently has become a difficult problem that smart packaging must overcome.

To solve these problems, Zhong Bo said that because ordinary people do not sufficiently recognize the importance of smart packaging, smart packaging is expensive and has no market, which affects the development and promotion of products. Therefore, the state should actively advocate the use of smart packaging products and, in combination with internet big data, cultivate and encourage industrial upgrading, increase support policies, and let information technology become a booster, gradually increasing the market share of smart packaging.

The 5G era has already arrived, and the internet economy will drive the smart packaging industry to take off. For packaging companies, the smart packaging market has just started and offers large market space. Even in the "harsh winter", companies should increase investment in the development of new products, strengthen cooperation with universities or research institutions, seize the priority market and broaden their development path.

——This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn). Original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-379367.html