What does it feel like to hold a colorful dumbbell-shaped beverage can in your hand? Will children be happier after drinking a can of chubby QQ-shaped canned milk? At the wedding scene, what kind of joy does the bunker-shaped packaging beverage of "Let's get married" bring to the wedding...Does differentiated metal packaging contain more business opportunities for food manufacturers?
Entering December, it is time for hot pot around the stove again. A small and cute metal-packaged hot pot sesame oil can has become a new highlight in major Sichuan hot pot restaurants in Beijing, Chengdu and other places.
Against the backdrop of China's traditional manufacturing industry actively exploring transformation and upgrading and increasingly fierce competition, consumers' various consumption preferences continue to emerge, and packaging products dominated by differentiated competition are increasingly showing strong development momentum. At the 12th China International Wine and Beverage Manufacturing Technology and Equipment Exhibition (CBB) held in Shanghai recently, the booth of Baixi Industrial Co., Ltd., a leading enterprise in the packaging industry, once again attracted a large number of professional visitors. The beverage packaging they held in their hands was no longer just the aluminum cans with a single appearance in the past, but now dumbbell-shaped, bowl-shaped, bottle-shaped, and even cute QQ-shaped... The contents of the packaging are no longer limited to fruits and beverages. Rice, desserts, snacks, condiments, etc. can all be put into colorful cans. It turns out that ordinary metal packaging cans can also be made so gorgeous and practical.
Seize the market opportunity with strong comprehensive strength
Won another award at the annual summit of The Canmaker Summit held in Lisbon, Portugal in early November this year, proving that Baixi Industrial's product design and R&D strength have been recognized by authoritative experts and peers in the international metal packaging industry.
Metal packaging differentiation requires crossing a high threshold, which makes it difficult for low-profit enterprises to get involved, which allows Baixi Industrial, which has strong comprehensive strength, to seize the opportunity. In the context of the development of the beverage packaging consumption market towards personalization, the business opportunities brought by innovation are constantly reducing operational risks, which has also blown the east wind for Baixi Industrial's innovation path.
Jin Xianlai, general manager of Baixi Industrial Company, has a thorough analysis of the packaging market and a clear idea: "Faced with the ever-changing market consumption demand, beverage manufacturers have begun to constantly pursue product innovation and personalized packaging, forcing packaging manufacturers to constantly seek innovation and difference to meet customer needs."
In the eyes of industry insiders, "Baixi Industrial has strong technical resources, has established a special R&D center, has excellent product experimental conditions, has cultivated and introduced a group of industry technical talents, and has customer resources and sales networks throughout the country. It is fully qualified and capable of providing customized services to customers.
The analysis of industry insiders is not unreasonable. In terms of Baixi Industrial's comprehensive strength in the industry in recent years, its position and capital strength are superior, and its supply chain advantages are significant, which is difficult for other packaging companies to do at present.
Quick decision-making mechanism ensures the successful implementation of creativity
At present, Baixi Industry has determined the core strategic positioning of product differentiation, but it is not easy to implement it in the design of specific products. For a brand-new product, every process link must be designed and considered. Whether the equipment and mold can meet the design requirements of the product, whether the printing can achieve the expected texture, the designer needs to have sufficient creative thinking and strong technical skills at the same time. The company's R&D team has taken the lead in design and product development. Most of the differentiated products they designed together have begun mass production and have been recognized and used by many users.
In terms of design capabilities, just taking the pattern design of shallow punching two-piece cans as an example, we need to consider the deformation of the printed pattern in canning and the tensile properties of the ink at the same time, and whether the high-temperature sterilization process after filling will damage the coating and the gloss loss of the ink. These problems are difficult to complete without a good theoretical foundation, technical experience and company test conditions. Therefore, a quick decision-making mechanism is an important condition to ensure the success of differentiated products.
Strong design capabilities to meet customer personalized needs
Over the years, due to the pattern design of products and services in various industries, The phenomenon that a successful solution is quickly copied and cloned by competitors due to low imitation costs has caused headaches and frustration to many business owners. Powerful companies have begun to innovate and find new ways to get rid of competitors or imitators based on a large amount of funds and unattainable technical strength. On the one hand, we attach great importance to intellectual property protection, and we will apply for patents and layout for each innovative point of our products; on the other hand, we are already developing the next generation of products while launching our products. Only in this way can our innovation maintain long-term competitiveness.
In terms of differentiated landing capabilities, its core capabilities include market grasp, design, testing and mass production. Since the profits of the packaging industry are greatly constrained by the upstream and downstream, the gross profit margins of various packaging sub-industries are converging, and it is difficult for traditional packaging models to achieve profitability. The demand situation in the packaging industry is constantly changing, and the traditional packaging industry can no longer meet market demand. Customers are increasingly seeking systematic, green, refined, low-cost packaging products and personalized services.
Facing the new situation, based on the concept of "changing awareness and improving demand", in 2016, the R&D personnel of Baixi Industry developed a series of differentiated packaging products based on market demand. These projects include 210g aluminum bowl can project and 500ml special-shaped aluminum can project. Among them, the development and application of new milk powder cans and 70g sesame oil cans have been successful in the fields of R&D and marketing. Differentiated products have been highly recognized by customers as soon as they were launched, showing a good trend of both supply and sales.
In the era of personalization, there is an increasing demand for personalized products that are customized. In order to meet market demand, the two parties also grandly launched the "Private Customization Series". There are various product styles, including a romantic wedding version specifically for wedding channels, a New Year's blessing version that brings good luck to the New Year, and a customized version for major corporate festivals. Allowing packaging customers to focus more on brand building and marketing and maximizing brand benefits is also an important basis for the two parties to continue to deepen cooperation.
How are these cute and eye-catching bottles and jars with different shapes designed in brainstorming and inspiration?
Inspiration comes from many aspects: customer needs, popular elements in the market, user experience, popular elements, functional characteristics of packaging, etc. All aspects need to be considered comprehensively. The designed packaging is both practical and beautiful, and it must bring value to the customer's brand differentiation. Take the rice can as an example. The side of the can is designed as a concave arch structure, which will avoid collisions and scratches when the can is full of rice, and strengthen the pressure bearing capacity of the can. The golden overall image plus the golden upper and lower covers, and the pull ring color consistent with the main visual color will also enhance the texture of the product, which reminds people of the preciousness and hard-won rice.
In the research and formulation of the process standards, quality standards, and inspection standards for cans and covers, Baixi Industry draws on the traditional production process and manufacturing experience. Due to the high processing strength of the expansion can, higher requirements are put forward for the processing properties of the paint film such as scratch resistance and tensile resistance. In order to meet the conditions of canning production, filling and sterilization, and the inner wall of the can to meet the safety issues of food and beverages, it is necessary to select a reasonable internal and external coating system to meet the mechanical processing properties of the paint film such as tensile strength and scratch resistance during the canning process. The key is to determine the process indicators and judgment standards such as the internal coating, external coating system, and the top and bottom cover material. For this reason, Baixi Industry has joined forces with various coating suppliers to jointly solve product process problems.
Baixi Industry has done a remarkable job in the research of filling technology for differentiated products. Due to the adoption of new differentiated can packaging products, the filling process of customers has also changed. The transportation and filling process of empty cans, as well as the quality standards and inspection standards need to be re-established or optimized.
In order to achieve novel differentiated packaging, the can design adopts the axial expansion process, which makes the can body lose the negative pressure resistance strength compared with the radial reinforcement ribs. The vacuum degree of beverages is about 0.03-0.05MPa, which causes the problem of beverage cans deflated after filling. For this reason. Baixi Industry, relying on its successful experience in two-piece can filling technology, adopts precise nitrogen injection filling technology, first fills liquid nitrogen before sealing, and then gasifies the liquid nitrogen in the can after sealing to generate positive pressure, so that the internal pressure of the can can be increased to solve the deflated can problem.
Although the liquid nitrogen filling technology for two-piece cans is mature, there are still many uncertain factors for three-piece cans. These factors include the headspace, the time from filling to capping, the temperature of the product, the surface characteristics of the product, the smoothness of the movement from filling to capping, the state of liquid nitrogen, etc. In order to achieve the purpose of precise nitrogen filling, Baixi Industry draws on the experience of Jiaduobao herbal tea beverage production to find out the influencing factors and control them in a targeted manner. At the same time, it provides customers with a complete set of technical support to help customers use these new packaging products smoothly.
Occupy the high ground of the metal packaging industry with continuous innovation
Baixi Industrial products have once again won the international packaging industry award, which fully proves that Baixi Industrial's product design and development capabilities are firmly in the forefront of the industry.
At the CBB exhibition, Baixi Industrial's special booth fully demonstrated its innovative and open thinking. A variety of two-piece cans, three-piece cans and other packaging of various models and shapes are placed on a long and gradually rising spiral booth, which looks like jumping colorful notes from a distance. There is an endless stream of people coming to consult and discuss cooperation intentions.
The reporter saw the rice metal can packaging mentioned by Jiang Xianda, a product manager of Baixi Industrial R&D Center, at the exhibition. Most of the rice packaging that consumers see on a daily basis is in plastic bags or in bulk, but a certain brand of rice on the booth is actually packaged in aluminum cans. According to the staff, this is a new form of grain packaging. After opening the package of this small package of rice, it can meet the needs of a family for one meal, avoiding the hidden danger of grain spoilage after opening the traditional large package.
In the next ten years, the global metal packaging market is expected to achieve an average annual growth rate of 3%, and the total revenue will reach US$150 billion in 2026. From the market trend, some high-end canned beer manufacturers have begun to require beverage can packaging companies to use 360-degree design, holographic anti-counterfeiting labels and customized packaging to attract niche consumers. The digital printing technology used by the company ensures that the cost of each product will not increase significantly while meeting the needs of small-batch production. Although Baixi Industry, which is currently in its growth stage, is in a leading position in the industry and its competitors are still unable to compete with it, what is commendable is that it still maintains a sense of crisis for sustainable development and remains firmly on the path of continuous innovation.
