In the food industry packaging design and aesthetic values importance

Packaging is an indispensable part of almost every industry in the current world economy and although the primary function of a package was to preserve its contents when it first appeared five thousand years ago, it has gained a wider use in time and the package of a product became almost as important as, and sometimes even more important than the product itself. Today, for producers a package must be economic, compact and occupy little space in the warehouse, be filled easily and quickly, and help to carry products undamaged to consumers, whereas for marketers it has to differentiate the product from other products on the market and help to promote sales, for package producers it has to be easy-to-produce, suitable to its existing machinery and made of raw materials available on the market, for distributors it has to protect the goods in the best possible way and be suitable for storing and transportation, for retailers it has to facilitate sales, preserve and display its contents, and for consumers it has to be attractive, give information on its contents, and be easy to use, carry, store and even to destroy. This multi-functionality makes the design of packaging very important. Successful designs meet all of these expectations, and if one or more of these expectations and needs are ignored during designing stage, problems may occur which will then lead to economic failure of the product. Every year, thousands of new products are launched to the market and product diversity is displaying an ever-increasing trend, therefore, packaging is also important to differentiate a product among others with similar qualities and functions. Thus, success of a product on the market depends not only on the quality of such product but also on the design of its package, which meets all of the expectations and needs listed above. This study takes a close look at the concept and different types of packaging, and the role it plays today, and discusses in detail how a successful package design should be in the food industry, taking into account all the functions attributed to packaging. In the first part of this study, definition and history of packaging in the world and in Turkey, and different types and functions of packages are discussed to clarify the concept of packaging. In the second part, "food industry", which is one of the heavy-users of packaging is examined in detail, and different types of packages used in the food industry as well as hygienic food regulations that are important for food packaging are presented. The last part of this study deals with design issues in detail. Every company launching a product aims to achieve success with such product, whereas, every package designer aims to make a good and functional package. With this study, I aim to provide guidelines to both product producers and package designers by explaining what are important when designing packages in line with the functions of packaging, so that products in those packages can be successful in today's market where there is fierce competition. Products are produced with a substantial amount of labor, considerable sacrifice, and limited funds and resources, and packaging constitutes one of the most important factors in the success of such products. Therefore, any failure in the design of packaging results in the failure of the product, has an adverse effect on the profitability of the company and wastes national wealth and resources. In this study, I am targeting to explain the significance of packaging to Turkish industrial and agricultural producers, and to packaging designers so that product development studies are carried out successfully, and products produced with limited resources, especially in developing countries, are offered to consumers without any degradation in their quality and quantity.