6 Things to Consider When Packaging Your Crops
It’s likely not as simple as tossing your Greenery-grown lettuce into a plastic produce bag. Vegetable packaging is about more than just a vehicle for that lettuce. It’s also about maintaining the lettuce’s freshness and marketing your crops and business so that customers will choose your product over others — and continue to do so as they come to associate your brand with quality.
We’ve identified six major considerations to help you decide how to package your crops. They fall into two categories: branding and logistics.
On the branding side, you should consider:
1. Your brand values
2. Your value propositions
3. Marketing & design
On the logistical side, you should consider:
4. Vegetable preservation
5. Your customer segment
6. Time commitment
Keep reading as we dive into each and take a look at some packaging examples from other Freight Farmers.
1. Brand Values
Why did you start farming? Be it to make money, help a food desert, or grow sustainably, this mission feeds into your brand identity and can translate to your packaging.
You can communicate your “why” both subtly and overtly in your packaging. Compostable packaging can help give the impression that sustainability is important to you. On the other hand, you can also incorporate that message more obviously into your labeling, with a tagline like “Sustainable greens for San Antonio.”
Think about how you want the people in your “world” (e.g. customers, employees, community) to feel about you and your business. Successful brands stand for something and attract fans and customers that align with what they believe in.
2. Value Propositions
Value propositions are the things you (or, in this case, your produce) offer. These can play a central role in the label you place on your packaging and how you market your produce. You want potential consumers to know how great your crops are!
To review a few of those important value propositions:
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Same- or next-day delivery since you’re located close to the customer, meaning peak freshness and nutrition of produce.
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Not only are your greens free of pesticides, herbicides, and waxes, but they’re also free from disease. As a farmer in a transparent, distributed system, your crops are safe from centralized outbreaks of foodborne illnesses like E. coli. All the crops grown in the Greenery™ S are clean and protected in the event of an outbreak.
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By harvesting and delivering the same day, you’re cutting out the one to two weeks that produce typically spends in transit. You bring customers produce at its peak, so it can stay fresher for longer — easily lasting three to four weeks(!) in the fridge.
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Because Greenery S produce lasts so long, there’s less waste — of food, and of money. Grocery stores and customers won’t have to throw out produce that becomes limp and slimy after only a few days on the shelf, which means they’re not wasting money, either.
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Consistently high-quality produce, regardless of the season.
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Flavor profiles and varieties that customers can’t find anywhere else.
You can include messaging around these value propositions on your packaging. Quick, catchy phrases like “Hyper-local,” “Pesticide- and herbicide-free,” and “Long-lasting lettuce!” can help to share your value propositions and sell your product.
3. Marketing & Design
Make your crops look good! Packaging isn’t just about the clamshell — it’s also the label and how you market yourself. How you package is a representation of your business.
Want to give off an earthy vibe? Try labeling with muted natural tones like browns and greens. Want to play up the techy side of your business? Play with strong lines, geometric shapes, sans serif fonts, and black and white with a pop of color. Want to frame your business as fun and playful? Try bright colors.
Think beyond the visual, too — marketing includes your business’ name. Make sure that the name you pick is catchy, memorable, and aligns with the brand image you’re striving for. Take a few Freight Farmers as examples: Rogue Lettuce (Rehoboth, MA) gives off a playful vibe; Harvest (Umeå, Sweden) plays up the earthy and natural side of the farm; BrightBox Farms (Kodiak, AK) tells customers a little about the farm itself and highlights the tech.
Brand recognition is a way to keep consumers coming back to your product. With recognizable packaging, you build that brand recognition. Make sure your logo is visible! You can consider putting your logo on stickers, a stamp for tags or paper surfaces, or even branded totes.
“We had really nice labels made, and I’m really happy that we did that as well. That’s not something we did at the beginning, and it just overall, I think, makes the product look so much better.”
Labeling Tips
To sell your product and help with brand recognition, include information such as:
Logo and business name
Website URL or QR code
Variety of produce
Hydroponically grown
These call-outs can be added to give your product a more personal touch and further inform the prospective customer:
Where the produce was grown
No pesticides or herbicides
Who packaged it
Date the produce was harvested
Flavor profiles
Recipe suggestions
4. Vegetable Preservation
You want your crops to stay as fresh as possible until they’re consumed. One simple technique to increasing your crops’ lifespan is leaving the grow plugs attached; this means that the plant is still connected to its roots and is essentially still alive. Leaving the grow plugs attached can triple plants’ lifespans!
Your method of packaging can also impact freshness: Porous paper bags and cardboard can let plants wilt over time, whereas airtight materials like plastic lock in the moisture and freshness.
“We grow mostly lettuce heads, with the [grow] plugs still on. Our customers go crazy for the live lettuce heads.”
5. Customer Segment
Do you know yet who you’re going to sell your produce to? This important consideration will dictate how you package your crops. We explored the customer segments in a previous blog; check that out if you haven’t yet identified your customers.
Consider the values and logistics of the segment when packaging — things like how long the produce will have to keep fresh before a consumer puts it in their fridge and what will visually draw in your customers. For example, for grocery stores, where produce may sit on the shelves for a couple days before being picked up, you might want to choose clear packaging that preserves well, like a clamshell with an eye-catching label. On the other hand, for CSAs, where produce goes immediately from your hands to the consumers — who have already bought your product — you could easily get away with a less flashy plastic-lined cardboard box or a reusable bin.
6. Time Commitment
Time is money, and your money is made by selling the produce you grow in your farm. Some packaging methods will simply take more time than others. For example, bulk packaging is going to be much quicker than packing individual 2 oz. clamshells of herbs. Similarly, harvesting whole heads of lettuce and popping them intact into a large clamshell is going to take longer than trimming leaves and delicately bagging them. However, you may find that customers prefer the ease of ready-to-go loose lettuce leaves, and that packaging them loose allows you to charge a higher price. Experiment!
“For our farmers market, I’ll do a mixed live lettuce head bag, and I’ll do about three to four heads. … I’ll do a few clamshells for my bigger heads. But my other leafy greens are sometimes trimmed and I’ll bag it, and sometimes I’ll just rubber band it. Same with my herbs; I’ll put them in a one-ounce clamshell, like you usually see at the grocery store, so people can get a view of it.”
The bottom line is to experiment and be creative!
It may take some time to figure out what works for you, and some trial and error to see what vegetable packaging best sells your produce to your customers. Don’t be afraid to take inspiration from other Freight Farmers! And in case you missed it, explore the basic pros and cons of eight different types of crop packaging in our previous blog.
