Is a Label Primary Packaging?

“Is a label primary packaging?” This is a question I get asked a lot. To most, the answer to this question would be no. However, it is important for consumers to know that some plastic bottles are going to have information on them that can impact the cost of the product they are buying or the amount of time they will spend trying to keep their product safe. Let us discuss what this means and how you as a consumer can avoid this problem.

In most cases, the information that is on the bottle is secondary packaging. This means that the information is added after the product has been packaged. In most cases, this information is not going to change the price or the usefulness of the product. However, what some companies do choose to do with the information they do put on their products is to use it to their advantage. They have a marketing strategy where they target consumers with the information that they do want to see on their labels – the benefits of the product.

In many cases, they will add a benefit like a money-back guarantee or a certificate of authenticity with the label. Consumers who know this information are going to be more likely to trust a product that is stamped with an assurance like that. Consumers want to be able to trust the company that is adding that stamp to the bottle with the assurances they want. This is why many companies choose to use this secondary information on their labels.

The other side of the question is the other side of the story. The other side is that is a plastic bottle that is going to go through the manufacturer’s quality control process. This plastic is going to go through all the steps that are done during the development of a plastic bottle, including the pouring of the molten plastic into mold cavities, the heating of the plastic to change its consistency of thickness, the cooling and the extrusion of the mold cavities into the bottles that will be filled with the liquid to be sold for human consumption. There is a very detailed and thorough quality control procedure that goes on at each step along the way. If the plastic was not designed for primary packaging material, then it will fail at any of these steps.

The other side of the question is whether or not secondary packaging is designed for the same level of quality as primary packaging material. The truth is that some manufacturers feel that it is acceptable to use the same quality control as that which is done in primary packaging material because they feel it is less important to distinguish the secondary packaging material from the primary packaging material. They believe that the consumer will be happy with any of the two packaging materials and it is not as important to “improve upon” what was already available to the consumer. This is a mistake that most retailers make when they are first learning the product design process and how to package products successfully.

It is important to point out that not all plastic bottles contain the same ingredients in the same amount. There are thousands of chemicals that are contained in plastic and there are a variety of plastics that are used to manufacture the bottles that we drink out of and that are used in other products. If the standards that are set for primary packaging material were followed, then secondary packaging should also be able to pass all of the government inspection requirements and should contain the same quality of product that was originally in the bottle. If the company did not follow the directions for secondary packaging, then they should not be using that same bottle to sell their product.