Introduction
Packaging weight and size impact how many products you can fit in a delivery truck, how many products you can display on shelf, the emissions associated with transport of those products and your EPR costs. This is why it’s important for material use to be optimised.
Optimising material usage
Optimal material usage means that the product is protected and contained throughout its journey through the supply chain, using only the minimum amount (by weight and volume) of material necessary to achieve this.
By optimising material usage, you are:
- putting less material (whether virgin fossil fuel-based, recycled content or renewable content) into the market
- reducing the amount of material and energy associated with recovering the material at end-of-life
- reducing the emissions associated with transporting the packaging (and potentially reducing the number of trips required)
- reducing material and compliance costs to the business
Optimising for product protection
To determine the optimal packaging for your product, you’ll need to know the size of your product, the format of your product (e.g. solid, liquid or gas), and what journey your product will go through at different stages in the supply chain. Is it likely to be thrown around? Will it be kept loose in a box or strapped down? Will it experience temperature changes or be exposed to different moisture levels which may impact the type and amount of material needed to protect the product?
Consider the packaging specifications, which will likely indicate things such as material strength, weight, load limits etc. Once you know this detail and the requirements of the packaging, you can conduct tests (like stress testing) to simulate this journey on different packaging formats to determine the minimum amount of packaging needed to protect the product. Protecting the product includes factors such as a reduction in risk of product breakage, ensuring food and product safety, containment of hazardous materials etc.
