Written by the Packaging Nova team. Material and compliance specifications reviewed by our packaging engineers. Last updated July 2026.

Food packaging carries a double burden that most other categories never face. It has to satisfy hard regulatory requirements — FDA 21 CFR compliance for anything touching the product — while also doing the ordinary commercial job of standing out on a crowded shelf or making a delivery feel considered.

The physical demands are unforgiving too. Fat and oil migrate through untreated board. Oxygen and moisture shorten shelf life. Refrigeration weakens fibre, and pallet stacking crushes anything under-specified. A box that looks beautiful and fails in the cold chain is a failed box.

Where brands get it wrong

The most common mistake is choosing packaging before choosing the material, then discovering the grease resistance or barrier properties don’t hold. The second is over-ordering: committing to thousands of units of a design that hasn’t been tested with real customers yet.

Both are avoidable. We start from the product — what it is, how it’s stored, how it ships — and specify the board, treatment and finish around it. And because we have no minimum order, you can run 50 units of a new SKU, put them in front of customers, and scale only once it works.