How Can New Coffee Brands Attract Consumers? Is Coffee Bean Packaging Design Important?

The Growth of Specialty Coffee Consumption

According to a recent joint report by the National Coffee Association (NCA) and the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA), specialty coffee consumption worldwide has been showing a rapid growth trend in recent years. Particularly in rapidly growing economies like India and China, the specialty coffee market has also experienced significant expansion.

Changing Consumer Behavior

Although specialty coffee shops are becoming increasingly common, government epidemic prevention measures have also affected consumer intentions. Coffee consumption has gradually shifted from offline to online, with more coffee enthusiasts starting to purchase coffee beans online and learn how to brew a satisfying cup at home.

Market Competition and Challenges

Major specialty coffee brands have flocked to online sales, each offering their brand's freshly roasted coffee beans. The specialty coffee market has become increasingly saturated, with intensifying competition among brands. Meanwhile, many specialty coffee brands share similar values and packaging design styles, making it difficult for new entrants to capture consumer attention.

Some might think that as long as coffee beans are of good quality and freshly roasted, packaging design isn't that important. For established brands with recognition and good reputation, design may indeed not be the most crucial factor. However, for new brands, packaging design can be one of the important factors in attracting consumer attention when trying to convince customers to choose their products.

When faced with an overwhelming array of freshly roasted coffee bean recommendations, 95% of people cannot identify coffee bean quality from images alone. Therefore, many consumers start their selection process based on packaging design.

Packaging Materials and Functionality

Before designing coffee bean packaging, the first consideration should be packaging materials and functionality. For today's coffee consumers, freshness and aroma are most valued when purchasing coffee. Using inappropriate packaging can shorten the coffee's freshness period and optimal flavor window.

Currently, the most common coffee bean packaging materials on the market are either polypropylene film BOPP+polyester resin PET+polyethylene PE, or uniaxially oriented polypropylene film MOPP/kraft paper+aluminized polyester film VMPET+polyethylene PE.

While they may appear similar, the former offers better barrier properties and sealing performance, making it more suitable for packaging pre-ground coffee powder. The latter has better light resistance and extensibility, making it more suitable for packaging whole coffee beans.

Regardless of packaging material, selling freshly roasted coffee beans requires packaging bags with one-way degassing valves. Freshly roasted coffee beans continuously release carbon dioxide after roasting, regardless of the roast level. Without an outlet-only valve to release gas from the bag, excessive internal pressure would compromise the packaging's seal integrity.

For selling pre-ground coffee powder, packaging bags without one-way degassing valves or with sealed valve openings should be used. This is because grinding increases the surface area of coffee beans, accelerating the escape of both carbon dioxide and coffee flavors.

Evolution of Packaging Design

As mentioned earlier, two factors can convince consumers to purchase a particular coffee bean: reputation and packaging. In recent years, we've noticed that coffee packaging has heavily emphasized personalized customization, with each brand's packaging having its own unique characteristics (such as uniquely shaped packaging, vibrant colors + bold typography). However, starting a couple of years ago, coffee packaging design has gradually returned to minimalist styles, with greater focus on packaging cost, practicality, and sustainability.

Why has coffee packaging returned to minimalist styles? A study by the Department of Management at Islamic Azad University concluded that consumers find packaging information more important than graphics when purchasing products. Before specialty coffee culture became widespread, consumers didn't pay much attention to coffee information and flavors. As long as the packaging design itself was distinctive enough or had bright, eye-catching colors, it would capture consumer attention and choice.

However, today consumers have more knowledge about specialty coffee and are driven by environmental concerns, placing greater importance on packaging materials, coffee bean freshness, handcrafted production (referring to non-mechanized mass production), and coffee bean origin flavors. Therefore, more brands are returning to kraft paper packaging to create a more rustic, handmade feel.

Additionally, speed and convenience are key factors in consumer product selection, so packaging designs typically don't use overly complex color combinations or intricate patterns. They usually use distinctive but not overly saturated colors to differentiate between coffee varieties and highlight important coffee bean information through text arrangement.

A 2021 poll indicated that most consumers today, when faced with coffee bean packaging that is too colorful or has overly complex designs that prevent them from quickly understanding the coffee information, usually don't choose these as their first option. The reason is that products that focus too much on color and pattern design often have average quality. Unclear information also requires consumers to spend more time and effort understanding the coffee beans.

The Importance of Clear Information

The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) has stated that packaging is a useful tool for presenting this information to customers, and packaging information is one of the three most effective ways to guide consumers to understand specialty coffee. Now more people understand how coffee origins, processing methods, and other factors contribute to unique coffee bean flavors, and increasingly more people are learning about the environment and characteristics of each coffee-producing region. Therefore, future packaging trends may incorporate more elements related to the unique patterns, lines, and colors of different regional ethnicities.

Today, many coffee brand designs are becoming increasingly simple and similar, partly because more consumers prioritize clear and easily understandable product information, and partly because overly complex packaging designs require higher costs, which are reflected in coffee prices.

As coffee bean quality from various origins continues to improve, many brands source from similar origins, with the difference lying in how each brand's roaster provides different interpretations of the coffee beans. Consumers are willing to pay higher prices for a bag of coffee beans due to trust in the brand or affection for a particular coffee. If it's just common coffee beans that require higher prices due to packaging design, most consumers would be unwilling to pay.

Building a Sustainable Brand

In today's fiercely competitive specialty coffee industry with similar packaging styles, is there still an opportunity to enter and gain consumer approval? The answer is definitely yes, but there are no shortcuts. We need to focus on a brand's sustainable development and authenticity.

As an agricultural product closely connected to nature, consumers prefer to purchase products that align with ethical and environmental standards. An anonymous marketing expert from a specialty coffee brand emphasized how sustainability has become one of the greatest necessities in specialty coffee marketing. Rather than spending significant thought and expense on packaging, it's better to tell more farmers' stories when selling coffee, connecting coffee consumers with coffee growers and giving consumers a sense of participation.

This feeling is similar to how people used to drink coffee simply for caffeine stimulation or because they liked the taste. Today, when drinking coffee, people hope that the money they spend can help coffee-producing regions continuously improve the environment and technology of growing areas and processing facilities, producing higher quality coffee beans and better-tasting coffee.

A Japanese survey showed that consumers aged 18 to 30 are more willing to pay more for sustainable and environmentally friendly products. This means that if a brand cannot provide more information about coffee bean sustainability, no matter how attractive the packaging, it cannot attract higher repeat purchase rates.

The Importance of Brand Authenticity

In addition to packaging and storytelling, brand authenticity is particularly crucial! Brand authenticity generally falls into four categories: continuity, credibility, integrity, and symbolism. This means consumers hope to see brands consistently and honestly demonstrate their commitments to social, environmental, and ethical practices. People cannot clearly perceive coffee bean quality from packaging appearance and information alone, but they can feel how a business differs from other brands in the same field.

Therefore, packaging design is merely a way to quickly attract attention and potentially gain new customers, but this is only the beginning. Continuous repeat purchase rates are the key factors that enable a brand to develop sustainably. Only authentic, touching stories and consistently stable coffee bean quality can truly retain consumers' hearts.

Image source: Internet

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