How to Use Product Packaging Services to Create an Irresistible New Food Design

You’ve gone through years of brainstorming, testing, and tweaking—and now your product is almost ready for its grand debut. But first, you need packaging that stands out on the shelves, sends the right message, and earns your product a spot in consumers’ carts.

From font to material, several elements can impact the success of your packaging—and the product itself. Follow these tips from product packaging service experts to design the best packaging for your new food.

Establish a Clear Brand Identity

To become a recognizable household brand, you need a clear brand identity that concisely communicates your story. It’s not enough to make truly outstanding products—that product needs to come from a brand that resonates with consumers and conveys trust, quality, and longevity.

When you’re developing a brand identity, consider these factors:

Brand personality: How do you want to connect with customers? What’s your preferred tone of voice? Decide whether you want your brand to be lighthearted and playful, sincere and informative, or unconventional and innovative. A consistent brand personality can help make your products recognizable.
Mission: What is your brand’s goal? Maybe you want to bring organic, high-quality food to a broader audience or introduce restaurant quality to an often underwhelming category. A unique angle can help you connect with your target demographic.
Competition: What is your competition doing? How can your brand fill in the gaps without blending in?
Differentiators: What makes your products better than what’s already on the shelf? From better-quality ingredients to a richer flavor, decide what you do best and incorporate that into your brand identity.

Find Your Target Audience

Your food product probably appeals to some groups more than others, and it’s important to tailor your packaging to fit their wants and interests. For example, if your new product is geared toward kids and teens, you’ll want packaging that incorporates bright colors, simple descriptions, and perhaps a fun logo or mascot. If you want health-conscious shoppers to buy your product, find ways to highlight freshness, natural ingredients, and nutritional value.

Use Appetizing Images

While a great product description can get mouths watering, product photography is often the best way to showcase your product’s best features. The right picture can help consumers get a little taste of what your food or beverage is like, whether you choose to display flavor notes or an image of your product on the dinner table. With the addition of a white tablecloth and dramatic lighting or a rustic farmhouse backdrop, you can also signal to shoppers that your product is restaurant-quality or homestyle.

Choose Your Colors Wisely

The colors on your food packaging can draw consumers in—or make your product blend in with the others on the shelf. Choosing colors that represent your product and stand out from the competition can give people the push they need to give your new item a try.

In addition to capturing attention in the grocery store, the right colors can also psychologically impact your target audience. Studies have shown that people may view products as healthier if their packaging uses cool, saturated colors. For food products consumers view as unhealthy, warm colors can positively influence their purchasing decisions. Consider what message you want to send and which colors match your product, from a sunny yellow to a clean white.

Focus on Font

Like color, fonts can send a visual message before consumers even read the words on your product packaging. Think about the difference between lowercase words written in a dainty, cursive typeface and an all-caps message in a thick, bold font—one conveys simplicity and elegance while the other evokes boldness. Look for fonts that clue consumers in, whether your product is zesty, bright, herbaceous, or rich.

Once you’ve found a font (or several fonts) that matches what’s inside the packaging, make sure everything is easily readable from the shelf. The most important words on your packaging should stand out, so readers know where to look first. Use white space and different font sizes to your advantage to ensure consumers get the information they need without getting overwhelmed.

Need more tips to help you choose the perfect fonts on your food packaging?

Read Our Guide

Embrace Simplicity

Consumers make split-second decisions when shopping at the end of a busy workday or between errands. It’s your job to create that captures their attention and sells them on your product in just a few seconds. Ultimately, a product that says too much may lose consumers’ attention, while simple packaging can shine.

Simple doesn’t have to mean boring. Impactful images and design elements can say a lot while only taking up a little space on your product. Look for ways to make your product packaging interesting without being busy.

Consider Your Materials

Food product packaging should be more than a pretty design—it needs to protect your product on its journey from the manufacturing plant to grocery store shelves. Consider whether plastic, glass, aluminum, cardboard, or other options will keep your product intact and what’s in budget. Then, look at what the competition is doing and determine if there’s an opportunity to stand out.

For example, using biodegradable, eco-friendly packaging may make your healthy food product more appealing to consumers if the competition uses plastic. Eco-friendly packaging can also reflect your brand’s values and convey your mission of sustainability. Similarly, glass packaging may help your product look gourmet next to the plastic-wrapped competition and position your brand as higher quality. But glass bottles may be more likely to break during shipping and cost more to produce. Decide what’s most important—look, protection, or cost—and choose accordingly.

Think Practically

Even appealing packaging in a high-quality material isn’t guaranteed to generate success for your brand. You can lose repeat sales if you forget about what matters most—the consumer. For example, if a product is hard to get out of its packaging or spills everywhere once it’s open, your buyer may switch to a different brand, even if your product is better.

Once you test your packaging for functionality, think about how it will take up space on the shelf. Grocery stores may have to limit the amount of product on the shelf if your brand uses oversized packaging, and you may spend extra money on shipping for a bulky product. Consumers may also be disappointed to pick up a big box and discover that there’s not actually much inside.

Turn to an Experienced Food and Beverage Branding Agency to Find the Perfect Balance

When designing food product packaging, you have to find the right balance between form, function, and cost. As a newcomer to the food and beverage scene, it’s challenging to know which decisions will pan out—and the wrong choice could impact how consumers view your brand in the future.

At DePersico Creative, we’ve been helping established and new brands with irresistible product packaging services since 1977. Our team helps combine the best of product photography, clean copy, and enticing imagery to create packaging that sets your new product apart from the competition.

Our product packaging services begin with a brand analysis, which allows us to see what your competitors are doing well— and what you can do even better. From there, our experienced team determines how to position your product in a way that stands out and resonates with consumers. Once your messaging is nailed down, we get to work crafting packaging that inspires trial in the grocery store.

Explore our new product launches to see how we’ve helped new brands develop a loyal customer base, and get in touch for the perfect product packaging services for your brand.