This year, major brands like Campbell’s are emphasizing transparency on their labels and soup packaging to highlight a shift toward eliminating artificial colors and flavors in their food products.

Leading manufacturers are making significant changes to their product formulations as a response to growing consumer demand for fresher, more wholesome and nutritious ingredients. These efforts are admirable, but brands now face the challenge of communicating these improvements in an effective way while encouraging shoppers to pick up their product and try it for themselves.

One of the most consistently proven methods of marketing a new item or product refresh is with product packaging. Think about it: Packaging is the first interaction consumers have with your product in stores. The outside container is the initial visual cue people see in commercials, on social media, or in a print ad. The package itself has become a more effective means of promoting the favorable qualities of a product because it sticks around much longer than a traditional advertisement. Consumers repeatedly pass by the product packaging in stores, and if they purchase the item, they see it again and again in their homes. If they take it on the go, they expose the rest of the world to the product. Packaging is, essentially, a walking billboard.

So, think about the types of containers that allow themselves to be easily accessible from place to place. A bulky, heavy, rigid can or jar isn’t the most convenient container to ship from the manufacturing facility to a store, then to a consumers’ home, and finally to their other destinations, like work or school. These traditional cylindrical containers are also not the most effective billboards — their rounded edges and structural components only allow a brand to showcase its name, logo, informative text, and product description on a paper label that must be wrapped around the package.

The old adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” simply won’t cut it nowadays. Consumers actively search for brands that take risks, offer creative solutions, and break the mold. 

Relying on cans, jars, and jugs may have been a necessary inconvenience in decades past, but with new advances in flexible packaging technology, nearly every type of food product can be properly preserved and safeguarded against harmful external elements (like moisture, light, bacteria, pests, or spoilage) in a much lighter, more vibrant package.

Take soup packaging, for example: When we think of the classic way soup has been packaged and sold to consumers, we think of the Campbell’s soup can or something like it. However, even Campbell’s is shaking up its soup packaging strategy to reach younger, active consumers who are highly influential and are changing up the food industry in significant ways.

We wanted to check in and see if Campbell Soup Co. and other brands switching away from cans to stand up pouches for soup packaging are finding success with this new method of reaching customers.

By teaming up with independent research firm Cint, we gathered insights on consumers’ preferences toward soup packaging and how they perceive it affects the flavor, freshness, and ease-of-use of this pantry staple. In this complimentary report, we’ve illustrated key data points that can help brands understand the changing shift not only in the soup packaging market, but in the packaging of CPG products as a whole.

Gathering opinions on soup, in particular, is insightful as it’s a liquid product that is notoriously difficult to package. Whether you’re packaging soup, beverages, dry snacks, mixes, or other household products, it’s important to stay updated on changing trends and advances in the flexible packaging industry.