For years, the frozen foods industry has utilized cheap, inexpensive packaging methods to house their products. This is because frozen foods do not require a lot of additional protective packaging; the very fact that they are frozen protects them from any damage they may incur while in transport or at retail.

The most common methods used by the frozen foods industry in the past was simple polyethylene or the even more archaic cardboard box. But recently, some manufacturers of frozen foods have taken a cue from the retail industry and started investing more in product merchandising, and the results have been anything but cold.

Zippered & Custom Pouches to the Rescue

Packaging insiders all agree that stand up pouches, a relative newcomer in the packaging world, offer manufacturers many more possibilities when it comes to product marketing and merchandising. Typically made from a combination of plastic and aluminum, stand up pouches can be custom printed using a rotogravure printing process, which makes colors, graphics, and text appear more vibrant, striking, and noticeable.

Standup pouches come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and the fact that they can stand on their own gives manufacturers even more options at retail. In today's marketplace, frozen foods are sold at more outlets than just grocery stores. Wholesale clubs, discount stores, and even drug stores sell frozen products, and because each of these types of retail outlets have different merchandising and marketing needs, it behooves modern manufacturers to use a type of packaging that can cater to the unique needs of their retail customers.

But stand up pouches don't cater solely to the retail industry -- consumers can also benefit from them. Savvy manufacturers who wish to attract consumers with a bit of something extra often look to the packaging world to help meet the needs of the current retail market. For some, the fact that stand up pouches can be resealed is its own selling feature. Today's modern consumer appreciates re-usability, and likes to open a bag of frozen vegetables, use what they need, and seal the package until the next use.

The use of the zippered stand up pouch by the frozen foods industry may be a cold business, but one thing is for certain: manufacturers who utilize this revolutionary style of packaging are seeing profits that are hot, hot, hot.