Dive Brief:
- 3D printing offers opportunities to food and beverage manufacturers in terms of rapid prototyping and easy changes made to packaging following market research and testing.
- "Having an accurate, production representative container prototype available in weeks, instead of months, and with no tooling costs is a major savings in time and money in the overall packaging design process," Paul Pavolich, vice president of Printing 3D Parts, Inc., said in an interview with Packaging Digest. Also, a full-color label can be printed along with the packaging structure, and the packaging can be chrome-plated.
- Any revisions, including the packaging and labeling, needed to be made to the packaging could be completed overnight thanks to the technology used.
Dive Insight:
Cost hinders adoption of 3D printing technology for packaging production, which Pavolich calls a "sticker shock". However, he says that once companies factor in that they will have no tooling costs, which can be upwards of tens of thousands of dollars, as a result of 3D printing, that cost becomes more justifiable.
"Packaging is critical to brand management, as is the printing of packaging," said Pavolich. "Our 3D-printed rapid prototypes, labeled with full color graphics and text, allow the brand owners to conduct the necessary marketing studies and design reviews in significantly reduced timeframes. Any design revisions in the container shape and/or the label can be incorporated in new prototypes within days. The brand recognition of a new product can be established and proven before the first product is on the retail shelf."