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Just like every other industry, the packaging industry evolves to meet the demand for new needs. The advent of an interconnected world of wireless devices, faster data transfer rates, and widespread smartphone technology mean that packaging must include these tools as well. In general, the term “smart packaging” refers to a suite of technologies that add embedded sensors, identifiers, and other tools to improve the safety, efficiency, sustainability, and traceability of products. In this article, we will explore what smart packaging is, its benefits, the types of smart packaging, and smart packaging trends. Note that this is still an emerging field and is subject to change.
What is Smart Packaging?
Smart packaging is more than just a container – it is a means of adding additional functionality into packaging to improve both customer and vendor experience. Traditionally, the role of packaging was limited to:
- Protecting and containing the product
- Communicating information about the product
- Providing convenience in use and disposal of the product
- Marketing the product’s creator/origin
However, with the advent of Industry 4.0 and new sustainability trends, the packaging sector must meet additional needs. These can include virtual add-ons, improvements to a product’s shelf life, food science information, precise data on consumer demands, and connected packaging to other devices and products.
Smart packaging can refer to any incorporated technologies, whether that be a simple code or an active device, that allow users to timestamp, track, catalog, count, or otherwise remotely manage products. Without jumping ahead too far, smart packaging can be as simple as a phone-scannable QR code to a biodegradable and carbon neutral container to a complex real-time tracking device, and everything in between.
Benefits of Smart Packaging
As a whole, smart packaging aims to improve buyer and seller experience by extending shelf life, improving product quality, enhancing product and customer safety, minimizing product loss, and giving distributors real-time feedback on the location of their assets. Smart packaging can provide more accurate data regarding inventory, distribution, and sales volumes, and can also increase security in the event of loss or theft. Smart packaging offers a whole new level of lifecycle assessment, and can reap significant savings for companies who use this information to optimize for both sustainability and process review. There is also great value in the technology from a business perspective: the U.S. market is forecasted to be worth more than $5.6 billion in 2024, and the global market is expected to hit just over $52 billion by 2032.
Types and Examples of Smart Packaging Technologies
There are a variety of technologies that are classified as smart technology, but the five main types are intelligent packaging, active packaging, passive packaging, near-field communication (NFC) packaging, and QR code packaging.
Intelligent Packaging
The idea behind intelligent packaging technologies is to be able to interface with packages to track, label, analyze, and provide transparency without the product being in sight range. This is a growing area of smart packaging technology that implements advanced sensors, data analytic tools like machine learning, smart labels or indicators, and other active communication tools to offer real-time feedback about the product and its condition.
For example, embedded sensors can monitor key specifications like temperature, pressure, humidity, and other vitals that can affect product quality through transport and sale, which is especially important for food packaging. Labels or indicators can track product location or count, and will offer a more exact amount of inbound/outbound product through the company. This data can be put through machine learning algorithms to build digital twin models of a supply chain, and can provide targeted boosts to efficiency. Tools like NFC tags and QR codes can give the packaging industry more data to work with, and reduces the need for printing/labeling. Finally, intelligent packaging systems like the security tags on clothing and electronics prevent theft and counterfeiting.
Active Packaging
Active packaging interacts with the product to help maintain its quality and/or shelf life. Smart packaging solutions like these are especially useful for food packaging and delicate electronics packaging, as both are more prone to degradation than other products. An example that everyone would recognize are silica gel packets, which help remove unwanted moisture from the inside of a container and heighten food quality. Oxygen absorbers, also known as oxygen scavenger packets, are also used to enhance food safety and are found as the little sachets found in dried food containers.
Anti-microbial agents and preservatives help keep unwanted microbial growth within a packaging and are typically included in cling film and any other packaging that directly touches sensitive products. Aroma and flavor enhancers help improve the sensory experience of products, and are again typically applied to food packaging. Self-heating and self-cooling features, such as heating packs and dry ice inserts, provide the necessary temperatures to stabilize or use products.
For electronic applications, reflective, anti-static bags prevent unwanted static electricity from damaging electronics, and are typically found in computer part bags. Anti-fogging packaging prevents condensation, and therefore unwanted moisture, from interacting with the product.
Passive Packaging
Passive packaging stabilizes products and keeps them ready for sale across distribution, however they do not act upon the product. Examples of passive packaging are insulated containers and cold packs in refrigerated products, such as those found in the cold chain of vaccines, medications, or frozen foods. They are crucial in the shipment of perishable goods, as they are affordable and require no power or input. Light filtering materials are also technically passive packaging, preventing unwanted wavelengths from hitting products, such as brown bottles for UV-sensitive items like essential oils.
NFC Packaging
Near-field communications (NFC) technology implements radio waves to shuttle information via close contact with products and a receiver, whether a smartphone or a dedicated device. With NFC tags placed on items, packaging can be used to increase the visibility of products through distribution, provide customer information, and increase security on a product. For example, an NFC tag can be scanned after manufacture, during delivery, and at retail locations to provide full visibility of the product’s lifecycle.
Thanks to most people having smartphones, NFC tags can also be used by the customer to gain more information about the product, access reviews and documentation, and can be a method of contactless payment and authentication as it is more secure than the cash register. Marketing campaigns can leverage NFC tags to engage with their audiences more effectively, such as providing exclusive deals, surveys, promotions, and various other benefits without having to sell to them actively.
NFC packaging can also provide unique authenticators for items that are nearly impossible to replicate, minimizing the risk of fraud even after a theft. Brands can also use NFC tags to separate their official brand from counterfeit ones, a much more secure system than simply using visual markers or other easily forged stamps of authenticity.
QR Code Packaging
Bar codes index and categorize item inventory but can only hold one dimension of information. QR codes are \two-dimensional versions of bar codes – but the second dimension allows them to hold much more information. A massive benefit to QR codes is that smartphone cameras can scan them. Consumers can scan QR codes to go directly to websites for product information, reviews, promotional content, and much more.
QR codes are used in the same way NFC tags are, such as to prove authenticity– however, scammers can replace QR codes with their codes, as they are difficult to tell apart. QR codes allow customers to track better and trace products, such as those moving through distribution, as scanning them links directly to the internet. This link allows for more marketing opportunities as well, as QR code use can be tracked, allowing code owners to access location and open rates. Product personalization opportunities also open with QR codes, as they can be scanned and bring users to games, surveys, videos, or anything other interactive addition to the product.
Smart Packaging Trends
The field of smart packaging is making products more active and intelligent, securing the supply chain, creating sustainable packaging materials, and much more. In general, as the push for the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to link devices together, so too does this cause a trend toward more connected packaging to bring products into this universe. This can not only include the physical smart packaging techniques discussed but also linking assets to the blockchain or the digital ledger of transactions that currently power cryptocurrency and other digital assets.
With the continued push for virtual and augmented reality tools, these will also integrate into product packaging. The so-called “gamification” of intelligent food packaging will allow brands to drive customer engagement, crafting an experience around the product. This will not only personalize the product but also expand it beyond direct contact, wedding hardware and software in another innovative way.
Smart Packaging for Food and Beverage Industry
The final and probably the most important trend is the acceleration toward sustainability in the food supply chain. Active and intelligent packaging, combined with modified atmosphere packaging and biodegradable materials, can revolutionize shelf life and minimize food loss. Food products can be kept safer using antimicrobial packaging while at the same time causing minimal environmental impact with innovations like biodegradable polymers. Companies can boost consumer engagement by showing where food comes from, offering in-depth nutritional value information not found on traditional labels, and give them a full report on the product’s environmental impact in a simple QR code.
These trends are quickly changing, and it will take time for companies to deploy the technology fully – but if you look at the back of a Coca-Cola bottle or a beauty product, these tools are already in use. Active and intelligent packaging is typical throughout product packaging to improve food product quality and extend shelf life. Smart packaging is here, and it will only continue to benefit consumers, companies, and the environment with its intelligent design.
Visit our article on Smart Packaging for Food: Importance, Technologies, and Benefits for more information on these tools.