From tin cans to aluminium ones, pet bottles to plastic pouches Edible oil packaging has seen a massive facelift over the years. The world edible oil packaging market caters to the food industry serving billions of consumers in the world. Key operators have used cutting edge innovation in packaging to attract consumers to make a purchase. Attractive outer construction, bright labels and practical design have together played a significant role in grabbing the consumer’s attention. Edible oil manufacturers are constantly implementing design modifications to cater to differentiated product offerings. For the bulk packaging category, edible oil is packaged in flexitanks, drums, among others for smooth logistics and transportation. Yet, the maximum innovation can be seen in the retail segment of edible oil packaging that has seen the mind-blowing evolution from material types such as metal, plastic, and glass among others over several the last few decades.
Interestingly, in the 1970s period began the “Yellow Revolution” spearheaded by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) where mustard, groundnut, soybean, and also other oilseeds like sunflower and safflower were cultivated over acres of land in India. Refined sunflower oil particularly saw an explosion of brands like ITC’s Sundrop, Sweekar of Bombay Oil Industries and Hindustan Lever’s Flora. With different social patterns and larger sizes of families and homes, the concept of buying a bulk quantity of edible oil existed at that time. Packaging was mostly seen in 15 litres+ of tinplate containers that eventually made way for HDPE jars. With evolving lifestyles and changing social patterns, edible packaging saw a shift. Smaller families, healthy lifestyles and space crunch saw a demand for smaller packs of edible oil. Besides, problems of contamination, wastage and oxidation in large edible oil packs made the shift to smaller SKUs rather quickly. The next big innovation came in the form of PET bottles. With bottle-to-bottle recyclability, lightweight opportunities to reduce the amount of PET resin used with great design flexibility, transparency, affordability and especially better food safety the edible oil category became a packaging case study. Improved customer experience through handles saw the PET bottle market became a delight for the growing urban population. The innovation of flexible packaging further improved the aesthetics of the packaging and ensured problems like counterfeiting and adulteration are kept at bay through hologram technology. Lighter, safer and more environmentally friendly the new trend has seen a tilt towards the highly convenient pouches that are portable, clean, easy to use, and eliminate the scooping, scraping, and squeezing of messy bottles, making it ideal for the health and budget-conscious consumer.
The future of edible oil packaging looks exciting. We see scope for newer SKUs and edible oils pouches for uses like meal kits, travel packs and picnics that are re-sealable, family-sized and good to test as samplers. At Montage Group we are committed to serving the edible oil packaging market through smarter e-commerce ready flexible pouches that ensure utensil-free usage, form considerably lower carbon footprint than heavy rigid alternatives, optimize product-to-package ratio and leave less waste volume. As the global market for edible oil packaging is witnessing a trend towards sustainable products the packaging industry is growing in terms of value generation. There is a strong inclination towards innovative and sustainable packaging solutions that serve the changing landscape of consumption pattern and evolving trends of consumerism. We are at it and look forward to an exciting adventure in the ‘Yellow Revolution’.