Capping Off Packaging With Innovation

By Robert Swientek, Content Strategist at Berlin Packaging

While packaging caps and closures offer basic product opening and resealing, they do much more thanks to creative thinking and innovation. For example, attaching a grinder to a peppercorn, gourmet salt, or spice container adds value (e.g., fresh-ground product), increases usage occasions, and enhances margins.

Design and innovation transform simple closures into multifunctional and user-friendly dispensers, pumps, and sprayers for precise product control applications, environmentally-friendly components for achieving sustainable packaging goals, and elegant toppers for visual appeal and brand recognition.

For Life’s Rejuvenate Dual System Outdoor House Wash and Window Cleaner. Image courtesy of Berlin Packaging

Forward-Thinking Functionality

Battered by inflation over the past few years, today’s price-conscious consumers want the biggest bang for their buck and great value. For products and packaging, that means multi-functional benefits like convenience, time-savings, and simplicity.

Pumps, sprayers, and other dispensing closures make life easier for consumers. They deliver uniform product dosing and pinpoint control, adding convenience and ease of use to applications ranging from personal care (e.g., skincare, hair care, personal fragrances, etc.) and auto care to home care (e.g., surface cleaners, pest control, lawn/garden care, laundry care, air fresheners, etc.), industrial, and food (e.g., fine-mist sprayers for cooking oils, condiment dispensing, etc.).

Flexible packaging with zippers and spouts helps preserve product freshness and reduce waste. The ability to reseal flexible pouches has expanded their usage to bags of cereal, coffee, nuts, pet food, salty snacks, pancake mixes, frozen foods, and multi-serving products.

Sometimes, a unique closure can create a new product category. For example, For Life’s Rejuvenate Dual System Outdoor House Wash and Window Cleaner represents a revolutionary leap in exterior home cleaning. Users enjoy the convenience of effortlessly switching between house wash and window wash applications without disconnecting and reconnecting separate packaging components or hoses.

The packaging system consists of a two-chambered, twin-orifice HDPE bottle united by a single threaded finish. One chamber holds the house wash. The other contains window cleaner. A patented sprayer with two dip tubes, a handle, and a hose attachment tops off the bottle. Switching between the house cleaning and window washing formulas requires a simple rotation of the sprayer nozzle. The packaging system ships with a specially designed plug and threaded closure to prevent leakage during e-commerce distribution.

Going Greener

Clear PET tethered cap for PET beverage bottles. Image courtesy of Berlin Packaging

Because of their metal springs and multi-material construction, traditional pump and spray dispensers are typically not recycled. Conversely, mono-material pumps and trigger sprayers made of either PP or PE facilitate recycling and offer sustainable packaging options for lotions, liquid soaps, personal care, and cleaning products. These mono-material dispensers can incorporate post-consumer recycled (PCR) content and lighter-weight designs to reduce the carbon footprint.

Last year, the EU implemented a directive requiring all plastic beverage bottles up to three liters to incorporate a cap that remains attached to the bottle after opening. The regulation was designed to reduce litter and spurred advancements in tethered caps, including a clear PET cap for clear PET bottles. Using the same polymer for the cap and container avoids separating the two components at recycling centers.

In California, a proposed bill requires plastic bottles under three liters to integrate a tethered cap by 2027. According to the Surfrider Foundation, volunteers collected nearly 30,000 bottle caps along the California coastline last year.

However, plastic pollution isn’t the only problem. Even when caps, closures, and other small-format packaging make their way into waste collection streams, the materials still end up in landfills, according to a recent report on “Small Materials With a Big Opportunity for Recovery” from Closed Loop Partners in collaboration with Target, P&G, Kraft Heinz, and other CPG companies.

The report found that small-format packaging — typically 2 to 3 inches or less in two dimensions — can slip through sorting systems and ultimately get disposed of in landfills. Sometimes, the small-format packaging is mistaken for glass pieces during the screening process, contaminating the glass recycling stream.

The good news: Upgrading equipment and technologies at U.S. material recovery facilities can capture tens of thousands of tons of valuable small materials (plastics and metals) annually for recycling, generating significant market value and avoiding landfills and incineration.

Top It Off With Style

Armor All’s Premium Wash & Wax + Protect product. Image courtesy of Berlin Packaging

While caps and closures act as functional workhorses, they offer immense branding opportunities.

Custom shapes like square, dome, geometric, or ergonomic designs become signature elements for a brand. Caps with figurines add prestige to limited-edition and collectible products.

Closures with embossed or debossed logos reinforce brand identity and add a premium touch. Unique colors, finishes, and textures on caps add luxury and create instant brand recognition on crowded store shelves. Transparent or translucent caps align with minimalist or natural product positioning.

Personal care, health and beauty, fragrance, and cosmetic products are well-entrenched in exploiting branding opportunities for custom caps and closures. However, other products should leverage closures to disrupt their categories, attract greater attention, and capture new buyers.

To stand out in the automotive aftermarket category, Armor All’s Premium Wash & Wax + Protect product utilizes a 48-oz PET bottle featuring a shapely silhouette, clear resin that showcases the pearlescent color of the product inside, and a striking asymmetrical overcap that seamlessly integrates with the bottle profile.

The custom-designed black PP overcap protects a standard continuous-thread closure, covers the bottle fill line, serves as a dosage cup for the concentrated formula, and bears an embossed Armor All logo that reinforces brand persona and adds visual interest.

In summary, caps and closures continue to evolve from simple resealing tools to multifunctional, sustainable, and brand-enhancing components. Innovative designs like built-in grinders, dispensing pumps, and resealable pouches improve convenience and reduce waste, meeting consumer demands for value and ease of use. Mono-material construction facilitates recycling, and regulations drive sustainable designs like tethered caps. Custom shapes, textures, and embossed logos on closures offer powerful branding opportunities, helping products stand out on the shelf.

About The Author

Robert is an award-winning journalist and media professional with over 25 years of experience in B2B content management and strategy. His packaging communications experience includes former editor-in-chief of BrandPackaging magazine, cofounder of the Packaging That Sells Conference, creator of the BrandPackaging Design Gallery Book, and former juror of the DuPont Packaging Innovation awards and other packaging competitions.