Consumers have made their expectations clear: If the bottle is going to tout eco-friendly processes or ingredients, what’s on the outside of the packaging needs to be considered just as responsibly as what’s inside.
When you’re producing clean-label brands in high volumes, the expectation of ethical and sustainable packaging starts with your bottle’s materials and requires follow-through until the finished good lands on store shelves.
Unfortunately, there’s a common hang-up for brands looking to green their supply chain: the efficiency gap. As operations managers will tell you, the efficiency gap is the moment a brand learns their next-level, planet-friendly packaging materials just aren’t cut out for the rigors of high-volume machinery.
To avoid this costly mistake and keep your distribution on schedule, it’s critical to understand the fine mechanics of shrink sleeve packaging before engaging a clean-label product manufacturer.
Shrink Sleeve Packaging: Sustainable Doesn’t Have to Mean Cheap Looking
If you’re wondering how to make eco-friendly packaging look just as good as its cheaper shelf competitors, the future of shrink sleeve packaging is here. For years, brands using full-body sleeves were faced with the environmental consequences of dragging down the recycling stream. For plastics #1 (HDPE) and #2 (PET), certain inks will not float and can contaminate an entire batch destined for recycling.
Thankfully, materials engineering has enabled suppliers to use much thinner, floatable films when creating shrink-sleeved packages. When your brand takes advantage of these films, you get the best of both worlds: 360 coverage for applying bold looks and graphics while maintaining your brand’s integrity in the proper recycling bin.
For supplements in particular, front-of-pack messaging is not only part of your brand identity but also a necessity for communicating ingredients and various clean-label certifications. Leveraging a thinner substrate allows clean-label product manufacturers to drastically reduce total plastic per bottle, but there is a technical consideration to note.
The thinner the shrink film, the more likely it is to tear or become misshapen during the heating tunnels if they aren’t precisely calibrated. Partnering with a company that offers large-scale packaging services means your thinner, sustainable sleeves can be applied just as quickly without losing that beautiful “pop” that consumers have come to expect.
Wrap-Around Label Application Requires Material Intelligence
While shrink sleeving is becoming increasingly popular for its versatility, wrap-around label application will likely remain the gold standard for efficiency for bottles and capsules. But how can your supplement brand transition away from virgin materials and still make an impact? Here at Lily of the Desert, we are specific about our expectations regarding sustainability.
From a secondary packaging standpoint, making the switch to high-quality labels with post-consumer recycled content is a good start. In addition, ditching adhesive labels for clean-peel options not only helps with the cleaning process for glass bottles but also for plastic bottles.
Applying wrap-around labels at scale is an art. Too much tension on the label material and the roll will flag; too little and it won’t feed correctly through the machinery. By choosing labels engineered to withstand the demands of automatic labeling machines, clean-label product manufacturers can reduce waste and ensure that 100% of bottles meet retail standards the first time.
Display Carton Packaging and Tray Design Can Save on Secondary Materials
While you may be thinking of ways to lighten the environmental load of your primary bottle, there are hidden opportunities in second and third-level packaging. One of the easiest ways to cut out extra shipping materials is to optimize your display carton packaging. If your carton is “retail-ready” when it leaves the factory, you can eliminate extra bubble wrap or plastic void-fill.
The bottles are protected by the inner packaging and outer carton, which face the consumer on the shelf. In addition to streamlining your shipping practices, transitioning to tray-pack overwrap packaging that uses recycled corrugate can also reduce overall weight. When calculating your brand’s carbon footprint, freight accounts for a significant portion of emissions.
So, when you lighten the load, even by just a few ounces per case, you are drastically reducing your transit-related emissions for an entire year’s worth of production. Partnering with high-volume packaging services that offer integrated tray-and-carton design will ensure your products arrive safely with the fewest materials.
Quality Assurance Starts with the Bottle
When you start to unpack just how your dietary supplements interact with the packaging they sit in, it’s pretty easy to understand the complexity of holistic quality. The USDA Organic or IASC-certified brand extends not only to the botanicals but to every step of the manufacturing process.
As a clean-label product manufacturer, we take every opportunity to ensure that package components don’t leach chemicals into your formula or disrupt bioactivity. It sounds simple, but when you work with high-performing actives, even small changes can have unintended consequences.
Take Lily of the Desert’s proprietary Aloesorb process, for example. By reintroducing high-molecular-weight polysaccharides back into the aloe, we are able to increase bioactivity and unlock more of this ingredient’s potential. When you make that kind of scientific investment, you can’t afford to have packaging that’s catalyzing the degradation of your ingredients.
That’s why we have spent the last decade innovating in our massive 400,000 sq. ft. facility and trialing potential ingredients through our in-house R&D team. If we haven’t tested how a specific recycled plastic interacts with your formula, we can’t confidently move forward with production. By minimizing your risk through thoughtful packaging and material selection, you can future-proof your brand today.
Tips For Environmentally Responsible Manufacturing Practices
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Always run a test batch: Switching to a thinner shrink sleeve or alternative adhesive is always a great idea, but make sure to run at least one small batch to ensure there are no hiccups in the machinery.
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Lightweighting: Reducing your plastic footprint by 5% through lightweighting your bottles can save tens of thousands of pounds of plastic during production.
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Don’t be afraid to ask for data sheets: Your packaging services company should be able to provide exact percentages of the recycled content in its products.
Scaling Your Brand the Right Way
Going green doesn’t have to mean slowing down. Focus on mastering the mechanics of shrink sleeve packaging, wrap-around label application, and display carton packaging. By taking a granular look at your supply chain through the lens of optimization, you can future-proof your brand while continuing to scale like your competitors.
Complete Contract Packaging and Manufacturing
At Lily of the Desert, we control every aspect of our supply chain. From harvesting in our own organic farm facilities to overseeing production in our Lewisville, TX state-of-the-art manufacturing facility.
If you’re looking for expert contract manufacturing and clean-label product manufacturers that specialize in high-volume production without sacrificing the details, look no further.
FAQ – Sustainable Packaging & Contract Manufacturing
Our world-class stability department runs every batch long before it ships. From packaging components leaching chemicals to premature oxidation, we ensure the packaging isn’t harming your formula, especially with delicate ingredients like Aloesorb.
Will sustainable shrink sleeve packaging work for my beverage brand?
Absolutely. Advances in materials engineering enable brands to use thinner, floatable films. By using one of our sustainable films, you get bold 360 coverage while maintaining your consumers’ ability to recycle the bottle.
How does using display carton packaging help the environment?
Maximizing the utility of your packaging ensures you’re not using excess materials during shipping. If the outer carton is retail-ready upon arrival, you won’t need to use additional bubble wrap or plastic fillers.
Is wrap-around label application faster than other methods?
For bottles and capsules, wrap-around labels are often the best bet for speed and operational efficiency.
