Huge Growth in Candy and Food Entrepreneurs

There seems to be a explosion of candy and food entrepreneurs.  And it makes sense.  Not only are many consumers looking to buy more locally, they want higher quality ingredients. Major food companies are buying up successful food entrepreneurs. So a food entrepreneur can exploit his or her passion and make money too.

The problem is that many of these start up companies are cash strapped.  They are trying to do everything themselves.  Some are using commercial kitchens, some downtime in restaurants, and some cooking from home.  They are using generic process equipment that is easily and readily available.

The cost of automating the packaging can come as shock.

individual candies

Most are creative and understand that their branding is tied to their product packaging. They also understand that to grow the business they have to have safe packaging that meets retailers expectations.  The problem is packaging is individual to the product and not generic. No one wants their product to look the same as the next product on the shelf.  So it comes to packaging, differentiation become more of a challenge because packaging is not simply product safety but marketing of the product it protects.

The most important thing is to determine the requirements of the packaging for product safety. Then find something that enhances the brand within those constraints.  For instance, does the product need a complete barrier in order to product the ingredients. Nuts, grains, dried fruit, etc can go rancid if exposed to air. That is why bars with grains and nuts are flow wrapped.

Standardizing the Product is a Necessity

Probably the most challenging thing we see with our customers in automating the packaging is standardizing the size of the product. Things that are made by hand do not lend themselves to being consistently the same every time.  Yet automating the packaging does require that consistency.

Our customers love our TTDF and Wrapster because they offer a great first step in automating the wrapping process. Our biggest issues in successful packaging automation come from getting the dimensions of the product to be consistent from one piece to the next.

Successful food entrepreneurs get that automating the packaging is an important step in growing their business, because it frees them up to do many more important things that only they can do, like invent new flavors or expand their marketing and sales.

It is a real pleasure to see their businesses grow. Please contact us at sales@packagemachinery.com to tell us how we can help you.