The Surprising Colour That’s Most Common in Food Packaging

Colour is one of the most important design elements in product packaging. Marketers and designers spend a great deal of time selecting the perfect colours for their packaging to appeal to consumers on a psychological level. Recent research has shown just how deeply colour can impact our emotions and perceptions.

A study by Electrix Intl analysed almost 2,500 grocery products to find which colours are used the most in packaging and branding – and found clear patterns.

Using data from Walmart’s online service, up to 355 products in ten food and beverage categories were analysed, totalling 2,422 products all together.

Surprisingly, light grey was the most common packaging colour for sweet and snack foods such as cookies, chocolate, fizzy drinks and ice cream, with 20.6% of all products analysed using this colour in packaging.

However, the study found that light grey was usually combined with another colour – dark or light blue for cookies and ice cream, while red appeared more commonly for coffee, cereal and crisps.

Just 22% of products only featured one colour on packaging – with cereal being the most common category.