Cereal Packaging: Why Is There Empty Space in a Cereal Box?

You would think that companies leave some empty space in their cereal boxes in order to protect the food product inside from breaking. Dig a little deeper and you will find hidden motives and incomprehensible reasons for the inclusion of empty space. In fact, empty space inside a cereal box is a controversial topic. It is not that the companies are against it. They love it as a larger box gives an illusion of more product. It is the consumers and the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) that sometimes complain about it.

The federal government allows companies to keep part of their cereal boxes empty to protect food items from breaking and for reasons which we will talk about later. At the same time, it bans the use of empty space which is non-functional – not performing any useful function. But a few loopholes in this law create a wiggle room for companies who often enlarge the amount of empty space for reasons which are best known to them.

This controversy over what is the right amount of empty space in a cereal box has been going on for decades now. An Alabama newspaper reported in 1973 that FDA was to commence an investigation into the overuse of empty space in a cereal box. It has been nearly four decades and there is still bickering going on over the issue.

Despite there being so much controversy over this topic, there are some genuine reasons for the inclusion of empty space. Protection is the most important of them. Other reasons include machinery  accommodation during production and reusing the package for other purposes.

With all this fight going on over the use of empty space in boxes used in cereal packaging, stand up bags offer an attractive alternative. For one, these pouches are inexpensive. They costs less than half to produce, and save you money in inventory and transport charges. Also, although it is possible to create an illusion of extra content in stand up pouches by filling nitrogen or some other gas, it is easier to know the right amount of a product in these pouches. As these pouches are lighter than cereal boxes, an experienced user can judge the amount of product from merely holding the bag. If this intuition does not work, you can always be certain by looking up for “weight” in product information, which is usually published in the back of custom printed StandUpPouches.net's stand up bags.