In essence, food packaging is the medium used by businesses to get their products to customers. It provides portion control and consistency, it allows for multiple price points, and it adds branding and value. It is an essential part of how cafés and roasters market their products. We sometimes lose sight of this in the foodservice industry; however, without reliable and safe packaging for take-away coffee, the café market would not be as highly developed as we see today.The success and maturity of this industry has been driven, in part, by the strong brands of the specialty roasters. The emergence of coffee roaster branded cups has lifted the overall quality of the market and assisted in educating customers on espresso coffee and building a market based on quality. One of the reasons customers like these products is that the cups associated with these brands are typically a high quality, well printed premium product, and on most occasions they are also locally produced.

The nature of our industry is that packaging is a secondary item when purchasing. Reliability, product quality, consistency, safety, value and service all play a part in the decision making process. In tougher financial times, this balance tends to focus a little more on price and less on quality. Café owners and roasters are always looking to reduce their costs; however, there is a difference between purchasing something that is cheap and something that is good value.