A recent competition looked at how well packaging designers approached the look and function of store-brand food product alternatives.  Once upon a time, the store brand food varieties were seen as lesser alternatives, often falling short of the quality and flavor of the name brand.  However, that isn’t the case any longer.  It is far more common to see store brand alternatives on the shelves and consumers are buying them far more readily.

Noting this trend, a company recently hosted a store brand food product packaging design competition.  The winners were named, but we were far less concerned with who won, and much more interested in the trends noted when looking through the entries.

Tactile Treasures There was a lot of emphasis on making food pouches highly functional and also touch friendly.  More and more, this trend is being seen on store shelves, as well as in design competitions.  People want packaging that makes life easy, and they are often intrigued by pouch packaging that feature unusual texture.

Design Dream The thing that we most appreciated about the entries for this design competition was the fact that the design was not overlooked.  Store brand products have long worn very bland, uninspired packaging.  That is not the case anymore.  The big chain stores are putting a lot more emphasis on making their products look great, giving the consumer more confidence in the quality contained within. Even if you don’t have the design budget, or the consumer loyalty of the big brands doesn’t mean that you should skimp out on packaging printing design.

Consistency Through Color Coding When creating store brand alternatives, there is often a very wide array of products to consider and, while you want to have a consistent brand, you must consider the fact that consumers want to see a difference in the packaging on their laundry detergent, when compared to a bag of snack mix.  In order to give varying designs while maintain brand consistency, many of the design incorporated bands of a specific color pattern and the brand logo, so that it could be used across the many different products.