Limiting repacking activities and anticipating future customised retailing needs
These repacking activities generate costs not only via the extra packaging material used, but also by the additional manual labour tasks, which now exceed the acceptable limits as regards manufacturers’ competitiveness and margins. The associated environmental waste is making repacking even less sustainable. Finally, the additional handling during repacking may potentially generate scratches or scuffing on the products.
“To reduce and simplify repacking, we are seeing an increasing need for small case counts to help producers reduce the number of products per shipping unit down to the in-demand batches of two, three, or four products. These offer the opportunity to manage, store and ship products more easily and flexibly for downstream tasks at distribution centres or within e-commerce order preparations,” comments Didier. In parallel, demand for complex product set-ups will remain and will still require manual repacking manipulations. So, with upstream technical capabilities to supply larger case counts, producers could ship the same number of products with less secondary packaging used and wasted.
“Now being able to produce both small and large case counts will help them better anticipate trends and accommodate new channels, as long as the traditional high production volumes of the standard formats are still handled on the same production line and packing solution,” Didier adds.
