Most food-to-go brands and home delivery services have been utilizing the same packaging the same way for about 15 years with little or no innovation.

That’s the way they’ve always done it. Changing the manufacturing process, materials used, and branding strategy for packaging would be disruptive.

Food-to-go and home delivery packaging, however, is ripe for disruption. A makeover is badly needed. Thankfully, we have more material options available to us today such utilizing Post-Consumer Recycled (PCR) plastic materials to create new products and utilizing materials from renewable resources such as Polylactic acid (PLA) which can be composted after use rather then sent off to a landfill.

Think about how restaurants and foodservice companies, for example, typically package food for home delivery. Food is wrapped in foil or wax paper. Then it’s placed into a box or a plastic or Styrofoam container. Then it’s placed into a plastic or paper bag, or a paper bag inside a plastic bag.

These items are rarely, if ever, branded or recycled.

Think about the difference rigid plastic containers would make. They would eliminate multiple layers of materials. These containers could be made thermally stable, so they would keep food warmer. A tightly sealed lid would keep food fresher. Rigid plastic would be more resilient to breaks, tears, and drops.

These containers could also be branded, using in-mold labeling on the lid of the containers. Customers could reuse containers to keep brands top of mind. Rigid plastic containers can be manufactured to be microwaveable so food could be reheated in its original package. Containers can then be recycled and reused to reduce the impact on the environment.

This is just one example. The larger point is that food-to-go brands and home delivery services would be well-served by rethinking their approach to packaging – for the benefit of their customers, their own branding, and the environment.

We’re ready to help!

CMG Plastics can produce rigid plastic containers to your specifications, branding included. If you’d like to learn more about how a change in packaging can benefit your brand, please feel free to contact us. We look forward to helping you and will get back to you promptly.