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3 Paths to Mouth-Watering Food Packaging

Here’s a familiar story: You’ve made a shopping list. You clipped your coupons and made a meal plan. You even ate before you got there like mom always told you to do, but then you find that one thing you just have to try. Something that looks so tasty you just have to have it. It might be a new product, and old favorite or something you’ve never had before but something about it seems so delicious it practically leaps into your cart.
3 Ways to Mouthwatering Food Packaging

Out of this world appetite appeal is essential to making your product shine on-shelf. Here are three different strategies for ensuring your packaging maximizes its appetite potential.

Eye-catching Photography

Photography is so much more than just a documentation of what’s inside. It’s an opportunity to tell a story and showcase an entire eating experience. The consumer can’t taste the product while it’s sitting on shelf, but the right photography through the use of lighting, textures, color and environment sets an entire scene for taste.

3 Ways to Mouthwatering Food Packaging - Photography
Briolla Ice Cream from Israel uses ingredient-focused photography with bright soft lighting. The result is a mouth-watering focus on flavor and classy high-end appeal. The interesting angles and inclusion of food mid-prep set this product apart as a unique flavor experience.

Sweet Earth Natural Foods adds drama to their products through chiaroscuro lighting and a tight focus on the food. The photography simultaneously showcases the high-quality ingredients as well as the rich bold flavors through color and texture. Rather than simply documenting their products, the styling and direction tell a much more compelling story and look damn tasty.

Flavorful illustration

Some products by their nature don’t lend themselves to photography alone. Soup always sits flat in a bowl. Potato chips look like potato chips no matter the flavor. The right kind of illustration can help convey the sense of taste in a way photos can’t.

3 Ways to Mouthwatering Food Packaging - Illustration
Pringles X-tra is a line of potato chips with “An aggressive taste that just won’t quit.” The problem is, the chips themselves don’t look anything different than mainline Pringles. The dynamic, aggressively colored flavor illustrations give an immediate sense of intensity irresistible to flavor thrill-seekers.

Momo’s Meals have some seriously compelling food illustration. Not only do the illustrations give you an immediate sense of flavor, the loose hand-painted illustration style reinforces the natural, “hand-touched” nature of the products. Even more, there’s a substantial window to let you see all the texture and color of the actual product. Which leads us to the last category…

Pure Product

If your product looks good, show it off. There’s a reason honey comes in a clear jar and corned beef hash comes in a can. Sometimes the most appetizing packaging just gets out of the way and lets the product shine.

3 Ways to Mouthwatering Food Packaging - Product as Hero

Norwegian fish smokery Rokeriet does a great job of letting their product do the talking. Quality control is always a concern with seafood. By having a central window, the quality of the fish is immediately apparent. Smoked salmon has a distinct beautiful color so by simplifying the rest of the package to a complimentary cool grey, the appealing bright fish looks even more delicious.

Austrian Organic Honey producer Wiener Honig definitely lets the product speak for itself. A simple logo and elegant type show off the rich colors of the product with drool-worthy results. Why slather makeup on a natural beauty?

Next time you go grocery shopping do a little experiment and go while you’re the most hungry. My guess is you’ll end up with a cart full of inspiring, mouth-watering packaging and products that use some of these techniques.

(PKG is NOT responsible for resulting food-comas and maxed out credit cards.)


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