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Reusable Packaging for Food and Beverage: 6 Innovation Trends to Watch

Reusable packaging has long been integral to the food and beverage sector – and will continue to be as the latter industry makes its way to a digitized, automated, and more sustainable future.

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While many types of reusables such as harvest bins, pallets, kegs, bakery trays, and dairy crates have provided value for decades, innovation continues unabated. From smaller footprint pallets and nestable mini-tank systems to RPCs for an increasing range of perishable food categories and IoT, reusable packaging breakthroughs continue to create fresh opportunities for the food and beverage industries.1Photo Courtesy: Schoeller Allibert US

Reusables reach across the entire food and beverage supply chain

A range of reusable transport packaging is deployed across the food and beverage sector. Containers such as intermediate bulk containers, tanks, and drums are valued for the shipment of ingredients to product manufacturers. For finished goods, the use of pallets, kegs and various reusable handheld containers facilitates downstream distribution.


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What’s trending: e-commerce, right-sizing, expansion into new categories and IoT

The Reusable Packaging Association’s recent study, Reusable Transport Packaging, State of the Industry Report 2020, tells us that reusable transport packaging adoption continues to grow for the majority of respondents. Over the previous 12 months, 67% of survey participants reported that they experienced increased demand, while 24% found it had decreased. For the next 12 months looking forward, respondents are very optimistic about an improvement, with 90% expecting increased demand, including 38% who projected it to be significantly higher. It should be noted that the survey took place shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Here are some of the trends that are driving the increased adoption of reusables in the food and beverage sector.

Growing e-commerce grocery share and adoption of automation

According to a recent survey, U.S. online grocery sales grew by 22% in 2019 and, and in the wake of high demand associated with COVID-19, could grow another 40% this year. Standardized reusables play a critical role in many automated order fulfillment solutions. Providers are also designing reusables to enhance manual e-commerce fulfillment, as well as solutions that can transition from manual to automated fulfillment as volumes grow.

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