Fomo Packaging

Versatile Fomo Packaging Is All Around Us

Apart from those who may recognise it as the brand name of an antiseptic dog shampoo or who are aware that it is an acronym for the title of Fleet Operations and Maintenance Officer or for an increasingly common form of social disorder known as Fear of Missing Out, the word Fomo, is probably totally unfamiliar to a lot of the general public. However, it is also commonly used to describe one of the best known and most widely used packaging materials in the world. The material referred to is the resilient, lightweight substance more formally known as either polyurethane foam or expanded polystyrene.

Today, billions of consumers worldwide eat their French fries from a tray or drink their coffee from a cup fabricated from a substance that is to found in almost every home in some form or another and, in many cases, its presence may not even be suspected. In addition to the two highly visible uses mentioned, the insulation properties and resilience of any item manufactured from this substance has led to an amazing number of different and, often, extremely valuable applications.

It is, for instance, very probable that this is the stuff packed into the hollow space between the double walls of your new refrigerator and, definitely between those of your cooler box, that provides the insulation needed to keep the cold in and the warmth out. In the case of breakables where there may be a high risk of damage during transportation, the preferred means of protecting these items is no longer sawdust or crumpled up newspapers but small polyurethane chips. In shipping expensive electronic goods such as a personal computer or a television set, it is quite likely to be delivered in a sturdy box and completely encased in a perfectly fitting mould that has been produced from precisely the same substance.

Irrespective of all of these fairly common uses, the aspect of everyday living that is probably most reliant upon Fomo packaging would have to be our food, together with the way that it is now most often sold and the way, in many cases, that we consume it.

In purchasing a takeaway portion of traditional British fish and chips, the consumer would once have received them wrapped in a sheet of old newspaper until health regulations enforced the use of unused plain sheets free of printer’s ink. Today, in these outlets, even the roll of white paper has now been replaced by several neatly stacked piles of pristine white polyurethane trays in an assortment of shapes and sizes along with the disposable cups for hot and cold beverages.

On the supermarket’s butchery shelves, chicken breasts, pork chops and T-bones will be found in similar trays, their contents protected from contamination with a covering of transparent film or a moulded plastic lid. In the fruit and vegetable section the contents may be cherry tomatoes, shitake mushrooms or mixed berries but the containers will be of similar design and made from the same materials and, by the way, the garden department will probably be offering its seedlings in deeper and sectioned trays but, nevertheless, also moulded from this ubiquitous plastic polymer.

In South Africa, the per capita demand for most of these products is probably as high as it is anywhere else in the world, In the forefront of the nation’s manufacturers devoted to meeting this rising demand, is The International Group of Companies and its two local production subsidiaries, Landpak and Brits Bag Manufacturers. The group has had almost thirty years of experience in this industry and so more than enough time in which to discover, understand and make provision for its client’s needs.

In offering its range of Fomo products to the country’s wholesalers and retailers, it has been careful to maintain the quality, affordability and dependability expected from a market leader in the packaging industry.