Whether you’re a homebrewer looking to distribute your first beer brainchild or a seasoned cicerone seeking a brand facelift, packaging your beer is an integral consideration for the future success of your product.
That said, craft beer can be a dense niche to explore, and even the most seasoned brewers sometimes need a terminology primer. While researching packaging options for your brand, you’ve likely come across primary and secondary packaging.
What is primary packaging and secondary packaging?
In this article, we’ll explore everything you need to know about both packaging types to help you determine how to give your beer a package that pops.
Primary Packaging
Even if you’ve never heard the term, you and your customers encounter primary packaging every time you pick up a beer can. Primary packaging is the label that’s in closest contact with your product—whether it’s the shrink sleeve wrap surrounding your can, the ink printed on the aluminum, or the paper label wrapped around the outside, the primary packaging is the brand material that you physically touch while you sip.
Primary packaging usually contains a few key elements:
- Your brewery’s name
- The name of the brew
- Graphics or branded material like logos, slogans, and color palettes
- Flavor details
- Packaging and sell-by dates
- The Surgeon General’s warning for alcohol consumption
While this might sound like information overload, brewers want to put as much information as possible on the primary packaging, which customers will interact with the most while they enjoy a brew.
Secondary Packaging
While primary packaging immediately touches the can, secondary packaging encases a pack of cans. Most commonly made out of shrink-wrapped plastic, cardboard, or plastic rings, secondary packaging holds multiple cans together.
Some brewers opt for a minimalist secondary packaging strategy—using only plastic rings or biodegradable can braces—others use secondary packaging to communicate even more branding information to supplement their primary packaging.
For brewers that opt for a shrink-wrapped or cardboard secondary packaging solution, these containers usually include the information available in most primary packaging, frequently adding a few more details:
- Nutrition facts
- Ingredient lists
- Additional flavor profile and tasting information
- Information about the brewery:
- Their location
- The brand’s origin story
- Their other brew selections
- Social media handles or websites
Secondary packaging provides additional opportunities for brewers to share key recipe and brand details with customers, making them a highly useful medium for attracting new audiences.
Benefits and Drawbacks
While some brewers opt to go all-in on one packaging solution—primary or secondary—some combine the power of both to achieve optimum brand visibility. For smaller breweries who can only invest in one highly visible package, each option has its pros and cons.
Pros of Primary Packaging
More and more people are drinking craft beer—in some states, craft breweries make up the majority of beer-making, meaning that customers are interacting with distributed craft beer products more than ever.
One of the biggest benefits of primary packaging is that it’s hyper-visible. While customers sip a beer, they have the can in their hand throughout their drinking experience, giving them plenty of time to absorb and interact with the can’s materials. Other primary packaging plusses include:
- 360° branding potential – Brewers can plaster the entirety of a can with their logo, color palette, and snappy copy.
- Standalone packaging capability – For brewers who can’t invest in both secondary and primary packaging, can labels have more power to stand on their own when paired with a more minimalist casing solution.
- Physical proximity to customers – While customers drink your beer, they’re literally holding your brand in their hands.
Even the most minimalist can labeling efforts can make a huge impact on customers. Using primary packaging to communicate critical information about the beer, the brewery, and the brand will keep your customers coming back.
Cons of Primary Packaging
Primary packaging is a simple, reliable way to continue brand messaging long after a customer buys a case of your beer. The method, however, doesn’t come without its drawbacks:
- Limited space – While primary packaging offers brewers a 360° space to showcase their brand, can labels are still a small medium. While cardboard or shrink-wrapped secondary packaging provides a larger canvas, cans offer much more limited real estate.
- Reduced branding opportunities due to regulatory packaging requirements – All alcoholic beverages must meet the FDA’s minimum packaging requirements. For brewers who choose to only invest in primary packaging, they’ll have to share space with boilerplate copy and graphics.
Primary packaging is an excellent opportunity to show off your meticulously devised branding and brew information, but the disposable, small containers require brewers to choose their can label contents judiciously.
Pros of Secondary Packaging
Secondary packaging can be as minimalist or over-the-top as brewers choose, and the medium has seen significant innovative developments over the years. The versatility of secondary packaging is one of its greatest strengths, and brewers have numerous options for encasing multiple cans:
- Brewers can use simple rings made of plastic or biodegradable materials to match the brand’s color palette or complement the colors adorning the can.
- Cardboard boxes can be easily repurposed for other interacting branding elements. For example, innovative brewers could print fast facts about their brewery, quippy copy about the brewing process, or tips for recycling the box once drinkers empty the cans into a cooler or refrigerator.
- Cardboard boxes or shrink-wrapped plastic can completely obscure cans, creating suspense and excitement for viewing the primary packaging once drinkers peel off the outer case.
Secondary packaging provides brewers with nearly countless opportunities to further showcase their brand or enhance their primary packaging. But, for brewers who err on the side of minimalism, secondary packaging can be simply functional.
Cons of Secondary Packaging
Secondary packaging provides numerous opportunities for innovation, but the method isn’t perfect. Some potential drawbacks of secondary packaging include:
- Further need for sustainability innovation – Plastics rings get a bad rap, shrink-wrap is usually not recyclable, and not all printed cardboard cases meet local recycling guidelines. Until packaging manufacturers devise more eco-friendly packaging choices, secondary packaging will continue to impact a brewery’s carbon footprint.
- Reduced facetime with customers – When it comes to the amount of time that the packaging is in their hands, customers generally interact with primary packaging for significantly longer than they handle secondary packaging. Once drinkers deposit their cans into a cooler or fridge for chilling, they’re likely to throw away the secondary packaging as soon as it’s convenient.
- Auxiliary expense – For brewers who significantly invest in high-quality, all-out primary packaging, equally extravagant secondary packaging is yet another expense in the production and distribution process. Brewers may be inclined to invest in primary packaging only, opting for more minimal secondary media.
Secondary packaging offers significant space for branding, and brewers have numerous opportunities to innovate a secondary package that’s more sustainable or creative than the industry’s current options, but until manufacturers perfect the art, secondary packaging can easily play second fiddle to primary can labels.
Which Packaging Style is Right for Your Brewery?
When it comes to choosing a packaging arrangement for your cans, there are numerous options to consider:
What does your branding look like?
- If your brewery has mastered maximalism, bright colors, and a strong brand voice, you may want lots of packaging real estate. You might consider both primary and secondary packaging to create the biggest impact.
- If your brewery favors muted tones, textual instead of graphical logos, and short, snappy mottos, you might not need significant secondary packaging. Perhaps a simple, striking can label and plastic rings give you the best opportunity to strike the right tone with your customers.
What’s your budget?
- If you’re trying to tighten your belt, or you’re just starting to dabble in distribution, you might choose to prioritize one packaging option over the other instead of investing in both.
Which packaging combination resonates with your brewery’s style?
- Your choices to diversify your packaging for each brew or stick with one iconic package for all of your brewery’s offerings might impact your package design choices.
Choosing an excellent package is a major step in securing the future of your brewery. That said, you can always make adjustments down the road.
Wildpack Beverage: Your Brewery’s Trusted Packaging Source
When it comes to choosing the right combination of primary and secondary packaging, only you can decide the right path for your brewery.
However, the experts at Wildpack Beverage are here to help you hone your packaging strategy and make eye-popping, customer-enticing labels that your audience won’t be able to resist. With our stellar in-house designers and innovative packaging solutions, the Wildpack Beverage team is here to help your brewery ascend to the next level.
Your brewery is ready to grow. Contact us about your next distributed brew, and we’ll start planning a game-changing, industry-shaking packaging plan.
Sources:
Brewers Association. National Beer Sales & Production Data. https://www.brewersassociation.org/statistics-and-data/national-beer-stats/
CraftBeer.com. Saltwater Brewery Creates Edible Six-Pack Rings. https://www.craftbeer.com/editors-picks/saltwater-brewery-creates-edible-six-pack-ringsSuncoast News Network.
Beer Packaging Market Size In 2022. https://www.snntv.com/story/45593552/beer-packaging-
