How to Use Square Plastic Containers in Your Business

Similar to other kinds of plastic containers, square plastic containers are common tools for storage, display, and collection purposes.

However, just because they're common doesn't mean every business owner necessarily knows how to best use them. Below are five ideas to help you gets started using square plastic containers in your business.

1. Use Square Plastic Containers to Give Back to Your Customers

These containers are excellent display tools for complimentary items such as breath mints, toothpicks, and hand wipes, as well as meal extras like packets of condiments and sugar and sweeteners.

Of course, depending on your establishment, there are plenty of other complimentary items you can display in these containers. For example, if you manage a hotel or motel, you might want to use these containers in your individual rooms to hold travel-sized hygiene products and single-serve packets of coffee, stir sticks, and packets of cream and sugar.

2. Use Square Plastic Containers to Store and Display Food

You don’t have to manage a restaurant to need these acrylic food-grade containers to store and display food. Many kinds of businesses – from convenience stores and gas stations to candy stores and hotel dining areas – use these containers to store and display food items.

NOTE: If you plan to display unwrapped food items – whether they’re unwrapped gumballs or candies or freshly baked brownies or cupcakes – make sure you choose containers with appropriate tools and accessories. For example, you can find square plastic containers with lids to help keep your food fresh, as well as with handles or handgrips to help your customers pour the amount of product they want. You can also add additional accessories like plastic or aluminum tongs or scoops to further help your customers conveniently access the food while still keeping it safe from contamination.

3. Use Square Plastic Containers to Let Your Customers Show Appreciation

Not every customer says, “Keep the change,” and these containers are excellent tools for collecting tips from your customers. You can situate them on the individual tables within your restaurant or situate them within certain area’s of your bar’s countertop. If you manage an establishment similar to a “fast food” restaurant, or the bulk of the employee and customer interaction takes place near the establishment’s checkout counter, consider placing the tip container near the checkout register.

4. Use Square Plastic Containers to Show Your Customers Your Appreciation

Many businesses hold drawings or raffles for prizes or free merchandise, as well as collect customers’ business cards or contact information to notify them about any specials or discounts currently going on.

If your business regularly does things like this – or, you’re interested in starting – consider using square plastic containers to collect the tickets, cards, or information from your customers. As with containers you use to collect tips, you can place these containers anywhere from your checkout countertop to individual tables and on your bar’s counter.

5. Use Square Plastic Containers for Behind-the-Scenes Storage

You might want to purchase new containers or you might want to retire old containers and move them from the front of your business to the back. Whatever you choose to do, know that these containers are good for more than just offering food or complimentary items to your customers or collecting tips, business cards, or raffle tickets!

These containers have plenty of storage perks, whether you choose to use them under your counter, in your stockroom, in your kitchen, or in your office. For example, if you manage a restaurant, you might use these containers to store extra packets of condiments or baggies of plastic utensils. If you operate a retail store, you might use these containers to organize sales tickets, price tags, or small display-related tools like hooks and tacks for signs. You can even use these containers to hold damaged items that need to be returned to your corporate office or the manufacturer. The possibilities seem endless!

Creating Product Displays for Your Hotel

When you think of product displays, such as the ones created using acrylic bins, plastic containers, and display racks, you probably think of them in retail stores where a customer’s main goal is to purchase an item.

However, hotels and motels are also flooding with places where product displays are useful! For example, hotels can use these bins, containers, and racks to:

• Showcase items like candy and other snacks as well as traveling literature in the lobby area.

• Keep food clean and sanitary in the dining area.

• Better organize and display complimentary hygiene items in the hotel’s rooms.

Below are some easy ways to create product displays throughout your hotel and increase convenience for your guests.

Lobby

Traditional convenience store racks (or c-store racks) with built-in shelves are great for organizing and displaying items in your hotel’s lobby. You can use these racks to showcase:

• Local, regional, and national newspapers and magazines.

• Local city and state maps (hotels situated in popular tourist areas often include maps of surrounding cities and states).

• Brochures highlighting area entertainment, recreation, and dining attractions.

Plus, in addition to placing gumball machines in your lobby, you can also think about using acrylic bins and plastic containers to create snack table or countertop displays of candy or other snack items for your guests.

Dining Area

You already know your hotel needs food grade acrylic containers in its kitchen, but have you given any thought to the dining area?

For example, if your hotel offers a continental breakfast, you can use containers such as bagel bins to keep breakfast items like bagels, donuts, muffins, and biscuits fresh and safe from debris. Acrylic dry food dispensers, such as the models designed to mount to a wall or on a snack countertop, are great space savers and keep clean such foods as dry cereal.

Don’t forget that you can use many of these same containers during other meals your hotel might offer. Dinner extras like rolls and baked deserts like brownies and cupcakes all need somewhere safe and clean to wait for your guests, after all!

Plastic containers are also great tools for storing and displaying nonfood items your customers will need during meals, such as:

• Packets of seasonings and condiments.

• Drinking cups, lids, and straws.

• Packets of plastic utensils or napkins rolled with metal silverware.

You can use small square plastic containers for organizing and displaying condiments and seasonings, and acrylic cup displays work best for holding utensils.

Rooms

Hotels offer their guests a wide variety of complimentary convenience items, and it should come as no surprise that small, clear plastic containers are great for organizing and offering these items to your guests.

Convenience items you can display in your hotel rooms include:

• Mini bars of face and body soap.

• Small bottles of shampoo, conditioner, body wash, shaving cream, and lotion.

• Disposable toothbrushes and small tubes of toothpaste.

• Grooming tools like disposable razors and small plastic combs.

Using Plastic Containers in Your Restaurant

You might think plastic containers are only for businesses that sell non-edible items customers can access themselves, but this simply isn’t the case.

Restaurants of all sorts depend on acrylic containers for a number of food and nonfood storage and display purposes, and three of the most common areas where restaurants can use these containers are the kitchen, the dining room, and the register and checkout area.

Your Restaurant’s Kitchen

The most common kinds of containers you’ll need in your restaurant’s kitchen are food grade acrylic containers. Think of “food grade acrylic containers” as an all-encompassing name for containers designed to keep food fresh, clean, and safe for consumption. Most food grade containers come with attached lids or lids designed to snap or spin, and many times you need to pair these containers with accessories like aluminum or plastic food scoops.

The kind of food grade containers you choose for your restaurant’s kitchen basically depends on the kind of food and food preparation goes on in the kitchen. You might need bins with lids, dispensers designed to mount on the wall, or a combination of both styles.

Your Restaurant’s Dining Area

You can use plastic containers in your restaurant’s dining area in numerous ways. For example, if your restaurant is one of those that keeps its tables covered in paper for children to draw and color on, you can use acrylic containers to hold the crayons. If your restaurant serves coffee or tea, you can use small plastic containers to hold packets of sugar and sweetener and stir sticks. Of course, if your restaurant is a buffet or offers any kind of additional meal item outside of the kitchen, you’ll need food grade plastic containers to hold and display your these food items.

Keep in mind that if your restaurant is more of a fast food or deli-style establishment, you can use these containers to hold additional items customers will need during their meals such as:

• Edible items like packets of condiments like ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise, as well as seasonings like salt, pepper, and sugar.

• Non-edible items like straws, coffee stir sticks, cups, lids, napkins, and hand wipes.

Your Restaurant’s Register and Checkout

Just because your customers are getting ready to checkout doesn’t mean your need for acrylic containers is over. You can use plastic containers near your register and checkout area in a variety of ways!

Depending on the kind of restaurant you own, you might want to use these containers to:

• Display additional food or other related items like breath mints, lollipops, bubblegum, or even toothpicks.

• Act as tip jars or places for professionals to drop their business cards for any promotional drawings your restaurant holds.

• Display non-edible merchandise like matchbooks or key chains with the restaurant’s logo.

Remember, you can easily use colored acrylic containers near the register and checkout areas if you’d like. Think about your restaurant’s theme or color scheme and have fun with your plastic container displays in these areas!

Plastic Containers: Choosing the Best for Your Business

Plastic containers are some of the most common tools businesses use for their merchandise and storage needs, and nearly every kind of business can use them! Consider these examples:

• Retail Stores: Most kinds of retail stores can use plastic containers to store, organize, and display both edible and non-edible kinds of merchandise. These stores include everything from convenience stores and gas stations to bookstores and gift shops.

• Restaurants: All restaurants can use food grade acrylic containers in their kitchens, and depending on the kind of restaurant you own you can use traditional round and square plastic containers up front for holding everything from dining utensils and napkins to breath mints and tooth picks.

• Amusement Parks: Amusement parks, theme parks, and carnivals can use acrylic containers to hold tickets and tokens, small prizes, and candy.

• Hotels and Motels: Not only can hotels and motels use food grade acrylic containers in their kitchens and dining areas, but they can also use regular acrylic containers in their lobbies for holding complimentary items like breath mints or bubble gum.

Now that you know how plastic containers can benefit your business, it’s time to figure out which kind of container you need. In order to do that, you have to first think about two factors: the kind of merchandise your store sells and the amount of space you have to work with inside your store.

Consider Your Merchandise

The first thing to consider as you’re thinking about your store’s merchandise is its size. Do you plan to store and display large items or small items? Maybe a mix of various sizes? For all storage and display needs, you need appropriately sized plastic containers.

The second thing to consider as you’re thinking about your store’s merchandise is whether it’s edible or non-edible. For edible items, choose food grade acrylic containers with accessories like lids, handles, and aluminum or plastic scoops. You can find these kinds of plastic containers designed to stand alone on countertops, work with other containers on display racks, and even hang on walls. For non-edible items, you can use more traditional plastic containers, such as round or square containers without lids.

Consider Your Space

You might know exactly the kind of merchandise you plan to display and exactly the kind of plastic containers you need, but everything hinges on whether you have enough space for your plans. Therefore, as you’re determining the kinds of containers that will work best with your merchandise, also consider the kinds of containers that will work best with the space you have.

If you want to create a countertop display, make sure you choose plastic containers small enough to fit on your store’s countertop but large enough to allow your customers easy access to the merchandise. If you plan to place your containers on display racks throughout your business, make sure you choose containers appropriately sized for the racks you already have – or order racks that will both meet your store’s space needs as well as your container display needs.

Using Plastic Containers In Your Specialty Shop

Plastic containers are excellent ways to display merchandise throughout your specialty shop. Not only do these containers organize and conveniently present items for sale to your customers, but they also lend themselves to easy storage should you decide to take the merchandise off the floor.

Read on for ideas for how you can use these containers in your specialty shop, no matter what you sell!

If Your Specialty Shop Sells Food Items

Specialty shops like bakeries, delis, ice cream shops, and yogurt shops, can use plastic containers in a variety of ways that are helpful to both the shop’s employees and customers. Food grade plastic containers are great for acting as ice cream topping dispensers or yogurt topping dispensers, and they can also hold the day’s fresh bagels, donuts, or croissants. You can arrange these containers to act as counter top displays so customers can easily access the food items.

These kinds of shops can also use plastic containers for nonfood items, because with every meal comes the need for things like:

• Silverware.
• Napkins, clothes, or hand wipes.
• Drinking cups, lids, and straws.
• Ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise packets.
• Seasonings like sugar, sweetener, salt, and pepper.

If you plan to use these containers for food items or for storage, make sure you look for plastic containers with lids and handles for safe storage and easy managing.

If Your Specialty Shop Sells Nonfood Items

It’s easy to find acrylic food dispensers, but note that there are many types of plastic containers that work well for nonfood items, too. Many stores prefer to keep their smaller merchandise close to the register to offer add-on items to their customers as they check out, as well as keep these items in view and less likely to get stolen. These kinds of containers are perfect for creating counter top displays for the merchandise. Convenience stores are especially fond of these kinds of displays, but any kind of specialty shop can use colored or clear plastic containers to create a display of merchandise on their counter tops.

Depending on the kind of merchandise your shop sells, you might want to:

• Create a counter top display of small children’s toys like bouncy balls, figurines, or play jewelry.
• Arrange collector or hobby items like sports cards or souvenirs specific to your area.
• Showcase specialty items specific to your location such as key chains, bottle openers, or lighters that feature the name of your state or city.
• Display helpful items like small maps or travel-sized hygiene items a customer may have forgotten to pack for his trip.

Be sure to choose containers that will work with your counter top’s space, as well as lend themselves to easy storage and handling. Check for plastic containers with hand grips if you anticipate you or your customers will ever need to pick them up, and make sure you select dispensers with lids if you think you will ever need to remove the container from the front of the store in order to use it to store certain items.

Using Food Grade Plastic Containers In Your Restaurant

Whether you already own a restaurant or you’re thinking of getting into the restaurant business, you’re probably already well aware of how useful food grade plastic containers are in any restaurant’s commercial kitchen. However, you also need to think about the wealth of possibilities these plastic containers offer once you step away from the kitchen and our into the restaurant’s actual dining and checkout areas. If you’re considering how clear plastic containers, such as food grade plastic containers, can help your restaurant, take the following three steps:

Step 1: Take a Look at Your Restaurant

Every kind of restaurant can use food grade plastic containers. Consider these possibilities:

• Fast Food Restaurants: Even if the majority of your customers use the drive-thru or simply order their meals and leave, food grade plastic containers are great for holding and storing sandwich dressings, condiment packets, napkins, straws, and coffee stir sticks.
• Buffet Restaurants: Food grade plastic containers are essential for holding and storing the food you set out along your buffet.
• Formal Restaurants: Even if your restaurant has a formal dining environment, you can still use plastic containers to hold items like silverware settings and extra napkins or clothes.
• Specialty Restaurants: Many restaurants specialize in a certain kind of food item. Yogurt shops, for example, can use food grade plastic containers as yogurt topping dispensers, while ice cream shops can use them as ice cream topping dispensers. Even bagel shops can use clear plastic containers to organize, display, and store their various types of bagels.

Note that some specialty shops, like those that offer yogurt and bagels, sometimes also offer additional breakfast items like cereal. For these restaurants, cereal dispensers are extremely useful. They hold and display the available cereals, as well as allow restaurant owners to conveniently store them when the restaurant is closed.

Step 2: Consider the Additional Food Items You Offer

Depending on the kind of restaurant you run and its layout, additional food items might include:

• Extra meal add-on items like bags of chips and candy bars.
• Seasonings and spices like salt, pepper, sugar, and sweetener.
• Packets of condiments like ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise.

Of course, your restaurant might also offer additional nonfood items that require plastic containers, such as:

• Plastic or metal utensils.
• Napkins or hand wipes.
• Straws or coffee stirs.
• Styrofoam, paper, or plastic drinking cups and lids.

Step 3: Don’t Forget Extras On the Way Out

If your restaurant is designed for customers to pay on their way out, plastic containers set on counter tops near your register are perfect for offering customers items like chewing gum, breath mints, toothpicks, and packets of hand wipes. Some restaurants, like those located in popular tourist areas, even sell additional nonfood items like souvenirs, maps, and small toys bearing the restaurant’s name or logo. Additionally, there are restaurants that act as distributors for national product lines and these restaurants can use clear plastic containers to display these items near their checkout areas.

Commercial Kitchen Use for Acrylic Dry Food Dispensers

Commercial kitchens across the board depend on clear plastic containers, such as acrylic dry food dispensers, to keep operations running cleanly and efficiently. When you think of commercial kitchens, large kitchens in restaurants and hotels – the kinds of kitchens we use when we prepare food for sale – probably come to mind; however, because of their functions – and often their sizes – other kitchens like those in schools and other institutions require the same kinds of equipment, and this equipment includes plastic food containers.

Below are a few ideas for how you can use these containers within your commercial kitchen setting.

Using Food Grade Plastic Containers Behind-the-Scenes

Food grade plastic containers are essential when it comes to keeping a commercial kitchen clean and organized. You’ll need these kinds of containers to:

• Keep food that you’ve prepared until you’re ready to serve it.
• Hold food that you’re ready to serve, and hold it while you’re serving it.
• Hold leftovers suitable for upcoming meals.
• Store ingredients when you’re not using them.

Generally, you’ll want to choose food grade plastic containers with lids for these kinds of uses. Plastic containers with handles might also work well depending on the kind of food item you’re preparing and storing.

Display Food Along A Buffet

Your commercial kitchen might be part of a buffet-style restaurant or a cafeteria setting like the kind you might see in a hotel, school, or institution. Displaying food close to the dining area means plastic food grade containers play just as important a role up front as they do in the actual kitchen.

Think about the last time you dined at a buffet-style restaurant. Most of the food items – including the main dishes, side dishes, and deserts – were probably in some kind of plastic container or acrylic dry food dispenser. A buffet-style restaurant depends on these kinds of clear plastic containers to safely hold and display nearly every kind of food item the restaurant offers customers.

Keep in mind that many food grade plastic containers come with lids, and these are especially important when you’re transporting the food to and from the dining area, or want to keep the food covered when it’s not in use. For smaller food items, you might even find you need plastic containers with handles so your staff and your customers can easily access the food.

Showcase Goods In or Near the Dining Area

Even if your commercial kitchen isn’t part of a buffet-style setting, there are still plenty of uses for acrylic dry food dispensers in or near the dining area. Depending on the kind of serving and dining areas you have, these containers might sit alone or atop wire displays for counter tops, and are perfect for food items your customers can select and retrieve themselves such as:

• Breakfast Items: Acrylic dry food containers are ideal for holding food items like cereal, donuts, bagels, biscuits, and muffins.
• Lunch Items: Extra items that customers might want to add on to their meal purchases, such as bags of chip, candy bars, and bottled or canned drinks, fit conveniently atop wire displays for counter tops.
• Dinner Items: Clear plastic containers are great for extra dinner items like rolls.
• Desert Items: You can place desert items like brownies, cake, and ice cream toppings such as sprinkles in a variety of clear plastic containers and acrylic dry food dispensers.

You can also use these dry food dispensers and other clear plastic containers to hold utensils, napkins, straws, coffee stirs, and packets of seasonings, salad dressing, sugar, and sweetener.

Keep in mind that even if you don’t offer food items in or near the dining area, you can always use small plastic containers to hold items like breath mints, chewing gum, and toothpicks near the register.

Discover Many Storage Uses for Clear Plastic Containers

If you’ve ever been inside a convenience store or stood in line at a grocery store, you’re probably well aware that clear plastic containers are valuable items for people who run businesses. They offer convenient, attractive ways to store and display merchandise as well as ways to keep perishable food items clean and safe from contamination.

However, storekeepers aren’t the only folks who can benefit from these products; whether you’re running a business or running a home, there are numerous uses for clear plastic containers.

Food Products

Several kinds of business use plastic containers to store and display food products. For example, convenience stores typically keep candy in plastic candy containers, but these kinds of containers are also perfect places for:

• Condiments like ketchup and mustard packets, if the convenience store includes a deli.

• Packets of creamer, sugar, and artificial sweetener as well as stir sticks if the store sells fresh coffee.

Some restaurants, including buffet-style establishments, might rely on food grade plastic containers to store and display certain menu items or dinnerware, and similarly hotels and motels might use food grade plastic containers to hold their continental breakfast items as well as any treats and snacks they might have available throughout the day.

Nonfood Products

Whether they’re mom-and-pop shops or part of a national chain, most stores have uses for clear plastic containers. In addition to the food products mentioned above, these containers can hold and display the kinds of small toys and novelty items sold everywhere from convenience stores to shops in the mall.

Many stores also choose to place these plastic containers along their checkout aisles so customers can make one last decision about small items such as:

• Maps of the area (an especially popular idea among convenience stores along highways and in vacation hotspots).

• Hygiene products like disposable razors and nail grooming kits.

• Eyeglass repair kits.

• Sports cards.

Tips and Donations

Plastic containers are perfect for collecting tips and donations. Consider these ideas:

• Establishments like restaurants, bars, and night clubs might place small plastic containers on they’re tables, counters, or somewhere near their registers to collect tips from patrons.

• Fundraising organizers can use these plastic containers to keep the money they raise until the end of the event.

Home Items

Plastic containers are ideal tools for better organizing your home. You might use these containers as places to organize, store, and display:

• Cooking items like flour and sugar.

• Hobby and arts and crafts items like glitter, beads, straight pins, safety pins, scissors, buttons, sewing needles, and thread spools.

• Office items like pens, pencils, paperclips, staples, highlighters, and correction fluid.

• Home repair and improvement items like nails, screws, bolts, and tacks.

• Hygiene and health items like cotton balls, cotton swabs, bandages, and gauze.

• Odds and ends like loose change, coupons, and business cards.

Clear plastic containers are also great ways for people to organize small items at yard sales, garage sales, and flea markets.