Tear open a bag of milk in the morning, a bag of biscuits in the afternoon, and a bag of fast food in the evening-food flexible packaging has naturally integrated into our daily life like air. This kind of flexible container made of composite film, aluminum foil and other materials, with its characteristics of portability, easy opening and strong freshness, has quietly changed the way people eat. In a sense, food soft packaging is not only a material container, but also a material carrier of modern life rhythm and aesthetic taste.
The development history of food flexible packaging is a concentrated evolution history of industrial civilization. The advent of tin cans in the mid-19th century opened a new era of food packaging. The appearance of cellophane in 1930s made transparent packaging possible. The invention of polyethylene, polypropylene and other plastic materials completely revolutionized the packaging industry. Today's flexible packaging has developed a composite structure with eight or more layers, which can not only block oxygen and moisture, but also resist high-temperature sterilization, and extend the shelf life of food from a few days to months or even years. With the development of technology, packaging has gradually evolved from a simple protection function to an integrated system integrating preservation, convenience and information transmission.
In the fast-paced urban life, flexible packaging meets the psychological needs of modern people for "instant satisfaction". With the rise of single economy, small-quantity packaging is popular, fitness people favor portable packaging of high-protein foods, while children's snacks pay attention to easy-tear design and interesting appearance. Packaging designers are well versed in consumer psychology, and create a unique "unpacking experience" through details such as material touch, sound opening and tearing fluency. Japanese designer Kenya Hara once put forward "the morphology of desire", which can explain why an excellent soft package can arouse people's desire to buy and appetite.
The art of flexible packaging has become the first dialogue between commodities and consumers. Thousands of packaging designs collected by the German Packaging Museum have witnessed how visual aesthetics can be displayed in a square space. The minimalist lines in tetra pak, Sweden, the cute patterns in Japanese jelly packaging and the elegant color matching in French dessert packaging all reflect the cultural characteristics of various countries. China's traditional "brocade box" aesthetics has also been innovated and passed down in modern flexible packaging, such as the imitation of silk texture in moon cake packaging and the pursuit of rice paper texture in tea bags. These designs transcend pragmatism and become a bridge between material enjoyment and spiritual pleasure.
Standing on the balance of environmental protection and convenience, food flexible packaging is facing a new transformation. Degradable materials, single material structure and reduced design have become new trends in the industry. Smithers, a British research organization, predicts that the global recyclable flexible packaging market will grow by 23% by 2027. This reminds us that the future food packaging needs to find a balance between protecting food and protecting the earth. When we hold a pack of snacks, the light packaging actually carries human's pursuit of a better life and thinking about natural responsibility-this is the most subtle material metaphor of modern civilization.
