Real Use Cases of QR Codes on Food and Beverage Packaging
By: Roselle V.Reviewed by: Ricson E.
Update: April 07, 2024
As food and beverage manufacturing companies compete for the best packaging setup that they can offer to their new target customers, millennials and Gen Z, how can the use of design-wise QR codes include more information in food and beverage packaging?
What are some benefits that companies can get from them?
Before, barcodes are used to contain the product’s serial number and serve as an entry to a company’s inventory management.
And during those times, the gimmick of adding additional output like recipes and nutrition information is hard to incorporate.
Because of the limited space available in a product packaging, food and beverage packing companies exhaust other means like commercials and marketing campaigns to inform the product’s important uses and more.
But as the technology of today is providing an easy way to market one’s product or service, barriers in adding information right through a product packaging are eliminated.
And with QR codes coming into the information unpacking spotlight, many known food and beverage companies are integrating the use of them into their food and beverage product packaging.
If your business is in the food and beverage industry, here are some QR code ideas that you can learn before employing them in your enterprise.
Use cases of QR codes on food and beverage packaging companies
It’s no secret that QR codes are making waves in the information storing and unpacking usage. That's why more and more businesses today are investing a the best QR code generator with logo.
As the use of them can create convenience for both the packaging design team and customers, here are 5 use cases of QR codes on food and beverage.
Blockchain technology
When in business with food and beverage, customers need to know where do the ingredients come from.
Especially with customers who are born between 1981 and 1996 or the millennials, they need to know if the product complies with work ethics and more.
Because of that, food and beverage companies are integrating the use of QR codes to show their product’s origin.
Companies that integrate the use of QR codes to store their product origin with blockchain technology are as follows:
1. QR code on Nestlé products
The QR code Nestlé integrates on their packaging helps in storing the product’s farm origin and processing. This aligns with theirmission to provide comprehensive farm to shelf data to their customers.
The QR code Nestlé deploys into their Swiss coffee brand Zoégas helps coffee lovers to know more about where the coffee beans were plucked and delivered for processing.
2. Beyers Koffie
Beyers Koffie is a Belgian based company that produces coffee concentrates and extracts for coffee maker companies like Nespresso.
This coffee manufacturing brand focuses on providing a farm to cup information guide with every coffee packaging they deploy in the market.
Their QR codes for coffee farms to cup information guide is deployed in the first quarter of 2020 and reached millions of coffee brewers around the U.S. and Canada.
Fonterra, a New Zealand-based dairy manufacturing company, launches a QR code where parents can scan the product’s journey from the farm to the retailers in 2017.
With their aim to provide product traceability to their customers, 90% of their manufacturing plants have gone online and are providing comprehensive data in every can in 2019.
Product Sale Promotion
As much as food and beverage is a part of everyone’s survival go-to, the competition between food and beverage companies prevail.
Because of the heated competition that a food and beverage company can experience, integrating the use of QR codes to promote a sale product is a great move to follow.
By imprinting a QR code with different prizes to the product’s interactive packaging companies can increase their sales with it.
To learn more about how the use of QR codes in integrating product sales promotion can drive more sales, here are the two food and beverage packing companies that successfully drive QR code powered promotion sales with their products.
Coca Cola is one of the leading food and beverage companies that has touched people’s lives with amazing Christmas Commercials and pandemic advisories.
As they take the lead in dominating the food and beverage industry, Coca Cola is still pushing to increase their sales with the use of their Sip and Scan Rewards system since 2018 using a Coca Cola QR code.
The multinational company increases their sales with a Coca Cola QR code on their cans and bottles. Exciting prizes await consumers who scan these codes.
TopFruit is an Oman-based fruit juice brand that is owned by Oman Refreshment Company (ORC) and is a distributor of PepsiCo products in Oman.
This juice brand uses QR codes to embed in their packaging to store image stickers where customers will scan and collect the stickers to win prizes.
The prizes they can get depends on how many stickers have they collected so far.
The campaign started in 2019 and ended in January 2020.
And through that period, they have increased their fruit juice sales and instill brand awareness with their Omani customers.
To start driving more sales with QR codes, you can embed coupon QR codes in your food and beverage product packaging.
For you to make a successful coupon QR code, you can use the QR code’s Multi-URL feature and set a scan limit to each URL or do a limited time URL availability.
As the number of counterfeit products in the market are increasing, food and beverage packing companies are finding new means to protect their customers from buying counterfeits.
Because of that, food and beverage companies are employing the use of QR codes to authenticate their product.
In doing so, these two food and beverage companies are securing their products’ authenticity with QR codes.
1. Fonterra
Aside from providing a farm to glass information with their dairy products, Fonterra is also authenticating their products with QR codes.
Leyda winery top wines incorporated QR codes to their wine labels to promote their products and give a valuable information to their buyers about Leyda winery.
Recipes and Recycling Projects
Another great use of QR codes for food and beverage packaging is by adding some recipes and recycling projects into the code.
As product sustainability is important for today’s environment, food and beverage companies can insert their recipes and DIY recycling projects into a PDF QR code or video QR code for live demos.
1. PepsiCo’s SodaStream
PepsiCo has always been on a mission to mitigate the current plastic waste in the environment today. Because of that, they launched the “Beyond the Bottle” movement in 2019.
The movement focuses on promoting reusable bottles to store water and other beverage.
By starting with their sparkling water brand, SodaStream, PepsiCo is integrating the use of metal bottles with an attached QR code.
The QR code tracks how many times the bottle is refilled and used.
The SodaStream packaging rebranding started in 2019 and avoids 160,000 plastic bottle usage with 30 metal SodaStream bottles alone.
Nestlé Waters North America incorporate the use of QR codes to provide their customers with means on how to creatively use the empty bottles with different DIY recycling projects.
The sustainability project started in 2017 and is continually implemented up till today.
As the use of QR codes in storing different types of information is possible, food and beverage companies can enjoy the following benefits.
Saves space on the packaging template
Thanks to the QR codes' ability to store more information, the use of QR codes allow product packaging designers to save some space in the packaging template.
Because of that, companies can retain their product create a pleasing to the eyes product packaging template.
Gives more information about the product to the customer
As QR codes can hold more than one type of information, their usage provides the customer with the product's additional information that can ensure the product's safety for them.
Additional information such as product authenticity, farm to table guides and recycling products is can be accessed within a scan through the product's packaging.
Because of that, the use of QR codes can help food and beverage companies to provide more information/data about the product to their customers.
Safeguard and secures data
Since QR code's data is can only be controlled by the user and its partner QR code maker, the use of them provides data security for the companies.
Because of that, food and beverage companies can ensure their product's authenticity and display of correct data in its farm to table information guide.
QR codes on food and beverage product packaging – future of digital information unpacking
As information today is can be digitally accessed, the use of QR codes in storing digitalized information is great.
With some food and beverage companies applying the use of data storing technology like QR codes into their food and beverage packaging, the future towards the increase of product and customer engagement is very possible.
If you're a part of the food and beverage industry, updating your food and beverage product packaging with Using QR code technology is a sustainable move to provide an authentic product engagement experience for your customers.
To start the future of digital information unpacking, you can partner with a professional and customizable like QR TIGER now.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are QR codes in food and beverage industry?
QR codes in food and beverage industry is a smart solution that stores various information. It can store links, texts, files, videos, audio, landing page, and more. They're used to give digital dimension and interactive experiences.
How are QR codes used in restaurants?
There are many ways restaurants can use QR codes. Restaurateurs can used QR codes for their digital menu, promotions, events, products, and more.
What is a QR code and its purpose?
A QR codes is a 2-D barcode that can be scanned using a smartphone to decode or retrieve the stored information. It's way more advanced than the old barcode, as QR codes can be scanned in any direction.
Today, it has evolved with more advanced features. You can now use them to store more than just links, like rich content media or multimedia so you can use them on different purposes.
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