Material guide · 6 min read
How to choose the right packaging material
Barrier, shelf-life, filling method and budget — the four questions that decide your laminate or board.
Start from the product, not the pack
Material selection is a shelf-life decision before it is a design decision. Oils, moisture, oxygen and light each degrade products differently, and the structure has to answer the specific risk your product carries.
A roasted snack loses crunch to moisture ingress. A ground spice loses aroma to oxygen. A serum degrades under UV. These three products need three different barrier strategies even at identical pack sizes.
The four questions we ask
- What shelf-life do you need, and in what storage conditions?
- How is the pack filled — manual, semi-automatic or on a machine line?
- Does the product need light protection, aroma retention or grease resistance?
- What is your realistic annual volume across all SKUs?
Common structures we recommend
PET/PE laminates suit dry goods with moderate shelf-life needs and are the most economical starting point. Metallised PET adds light and moisture barrier for snacks and powders. Aluminium foil structures give the highest barrier for aroma-critical products such as masala, coffee and tea.
Kraft paper laminates carry a natural look while retaining an internal barrier layer, and recyclable mono-material structures are increasingly viable where your filling line allows the different seal window.