What is Packaging?

By: Buck             Hello everyone, my name is Buck, and I am the packaging engineer of the group. I know what you are thinking, and it is somewhere along the lines of, “What even is packaging?” Well, you are not alone with this thought, as this is exactly what all of my friends said when I told them what I decided to study. With this question also comes lots of joke, like: “Oh, you’re a Card Board Box Engineer?”, or, “So you’re just going to deliver packages for FedEx?” I’ve heard them all. I understand that most people don’t know what packaging is all about, so I have decided to dedicate my first blog to giving an idea of what I am doing with my life, and maybe reduce the amount of times I get the question “What is packaging?”             So, what is packaging? To start broad, packaging involves the designing and manufacturing of new forms of sustainable and efficient containment methods. It is a mix of chemistry, physics, marketing, engineering, and product and graphic design. Packaging and packaging majors can be found in nearly all companies that have a need for a physical package. It is an extremely variable industry, which is one of the reasons why I am so interested in it. The more common fields of packaging are food, beverage, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic. Within these fields, top companies are constantly taking calculated risks in attempts to stand out. Some elements considered when determining the improvements to be made are: materials used to maximize both efficiency and product price, the shape of the container to improve marketing abilities and convenience, and materials or methods used to promote sustainability and eco-friendly production (Atkinson, 2016).             Food and beverage are debatably the most eminent packaging industries today. A prominent factor within these industries is the shaping of containers as a form of marketing. A familiar beverage company to all of us is Coca-Cola. They have proven themselves to be one of the top cola companies in the world for over 100 years. One characteristic that has helped Coca-Cola make their mark on their industry is the iconic hourglass shaped glass bottle that is a constant reminder of the brand they have created. This subtle yet impactful style that they choose for their drink is what has kept their loyal consumers reaching for their favorite cola for over a century. A risk that Coca-Cola took in the 1990’s was taking their iconic shape and applying it to a traditional aluminum can. Using a “pinched waist,” they aimed to replicate the familiarity of the glass bottle, but with the convenience of a cheaper and lighter material. This gamble lead Coca-Cola to receive the Food and Drug Packaging Magazine 1997 Package of the Year award (Davis, 2014).             Pharmaceuticals and cosmetics make up the rest of the larger industries in packaging. And, like all other fields in packaging, sustainable and eco-friendly production has been a priority for years. We all know about the three R’s of being eco-friendly: reduce, reuse, and recycle. These three basic principles are applied to the packaging aspect of almost any company. Stores and companies everywhere are starting to offer ways of reusing their packages. Equivalenza, a store in Spain, have been successful in offering fragrances in reusable bottles that come in different sizes for convenience. This creates a cycle of bottles being returned and refilled and redistributed. Quadpack, a cosmetics company, has a system of recycling their packages for their products and even allows for their consumers to pick what percent of their package is recycled. This allows not only for the consumer to make an impact on recycling, but also allows them to feel a sense of control over how big of an impact they have. This same company is also working to reduce the amount of packaging and waste they create. To do this, they offer products that have thinner walls that still are efficient at containing the product (Quadpack, 2015).              So, what is packaging? I hope that after this short post you have a better understanding of just what it is that I am studying. Also, I hope that you took from this that packaging is a very broad field of engineering that can be applied to almost anything that you want it to, which is why I am so interested in it. I hope to continue my studies and find out more about how I can apply what I am learning to the things that I love and go from there.