Choose the Best Plastic Containers for Food Displays

Whether you manage a candy store, convenience store, grocery store, bakery, or ice cream parlor, if you sell unwrapped food items of any kind, you need plastic containers that will allow you to display those items in convenient and attractive ways while keeping the food fresh and safe from debris.

In other words, despite how useful they are in other situations, plain ol’ plastic containers aren’t going to work this time. Food items require containers that will keep them fresh and safe from contamination, and a typical round or square plastic container with an opening won’t provide any of that.

Gravity bins are some of the most common display fixtures for dry food items. You’ve probably seen these kinds of fixtures mounted to the walls and countertops and holding dry foods like small candy pieces, coffee beans or grinds, cereal, and nuts. Depending on the model, there is usually some kind of knob or lever the customers can turn or pull that starts a flow of the food product for the customer to catch in another container or a baggie.

However, not every business wants to use gravity bins. Maybe there isn’t enough wall or countertop space, or maybe the store owner wants to display a food item that gravity bins are designed to hold. Fortunately, there are many other acrylic bins and plastic containers available for attractively and conveniently displaying your food items while still keeping the food fresh and clean.

Acrylic Bins and Plastic Containers with Lids

Acrylic bins and plastic containers with lids are necessary display fixtures for any kind of food item that isn’t protected from the elements in some other way. Store owners can use bins and containers with lids to store and display everything from bulk unwrapped candy like gumballs to dry snacks like pretzels, peanuts, and trail mix.

Acrylic Bins and Plastic Containers with Hand Grips

Acrylic bins and plastic containers with hand grips are perfect for storing and displaying food items that customers need to pour in order to access. Generally, customers only need to unscrew the container’s lid and then pour the food item. Such food items might include snacks like trail mixes or a restaurant chef’s baking supplies like sugar or flour.

Hand grip containers are especially convenient because their handles make them easy to transport from the display location to the kitchen or stock room.

Acrylic Bins and Plastic Containers with Scoops and Tongs

Acrylic bins and plastic containers with scoops and tongs are ideal for storing and displaying food items that customers can’t access with their hands alone. These kinds of containers often already come with hinged or sliding lids designed especially for them.

For example, bakeries often use acrylic bins with tongs for displaying their pastries – customers can easily select and pick up donuts, bagels, brownies, and other baked goods using the tongs and never touching any of the other food items. Ice cream parlors, on the other hand, often use containers with scoops to display nuts, sprinkles, and other ice cream toppings – customers can use the scoops to scoop out as many or as few toppings as they want.

5 Ways to Treat Your Customers with Jelly Bean Displays

Jelly beans, such as those manufactured by the well-known Jelly Belly Candy Company, are popular among a wide variety of customer bases and therefore make an excellent choice for candy displays in convenience stores, grocery stores, delis, bakeries, yogurt shops, ice cream parlors, and many other kinds of retail businesses.

Should you display your jelly beans on your store’s countertop? On a display rack that sits on the floor? What about your walls? Can jelly beans go there, too? As with other kinds of candies, jelly beans lend themselves to many different kinds of candy displays. Below are five of the most convenient and attractive ways to display your jelly beans. Choose the one – or two! – that best suit your store.

Plastic Containers, Glass Jars, and Fishbowls

Plastic containers, glass jars such as candy jars, and fishbowls (in both plastic and glass) are some of the most common display tools in most stores, and this is likely because these containers are durable, versatile, and reusable.

If you choose any of these kinds of containers for your jelly bean displays, make sure you choose containers with lids to keep your jelly beans fresh and safe from debris, as well as aluminum or plastic scoops so your customers can easily scoop out the number of jelly beans they want without touching any they don’t want – but others might!

Gravity Bins

You’re probably familiar with gravity bins; they’re the kinds of bins designed to be fastened to countertops, walls, or shelves and usually contain coffee beans, dry cereal, or small candies.

These bins are ideal for holding jelly beans as they save space, allow the customers to easily see what kinds of jelly beans are inside, and allow them to easily dispense the number of jelly beans they want.

Drawer Displays

Draw displays are quite convenient in that they protect your candies from the elements but they don’t require you to keep up with a lid.

Drawer display units, like plexi displays and acrylic dispensers, come in units comprised of several drawers that can hold various amounts of weight and can be paired with other units to create a jelly bean display sized exactly as big or small as you want it.

Scoop Bins

Scoop bins are similar to regular candy containers (like plastic containers, glass jars, and fishbowls) as well as drawer displays. You can find units comprised of several bins attached together, and each unit comes with a convenient attached scoop that will reach all the bins.

You can order scoop bins based on how much candy you plan to display in each bin, as each different kind of scoop bin will hold a certain weight of candy. If you plan to have a large jelly bean display, choose scoop bins that can hold a heavy weight of candy; likewise, if you expect your jelly bean display will be small, choose a scoop bin that will accommodate light weights.

Gumball Machines

Despite their name, gumball machines aren’t just for gumballs! You can put many different kinds of merchandise – edible and non-edible – in these machines, and that includes jelly beans.

Starting a Bakery? Don't Forget These Important Containers!

It might seem like there are as many acrylic and plastic containers for holding your bakery’s baked goods as there are baked goods in your bakery! Because of this, choosing the best containers for your bakery might feel a bit overwhelming.

Don’t worry. Below are brief descriptions of some of the most common kinds of containers designed for use in bakeries. Consider the kinds of baked goods your bakery sells to help you choose the best containers for displaying those goods.

Bagel Bins

Bagel bins do exactly what their name suggests. They organize, store, and display your store’s bagels.

However, bagel bins can display much more than just bagels. Depending on the kind of baked goods your bakery sells, you can use bagel bins to hold cupcakes, cookies, pieces of cake, brownies, dinner rolls, and croissants in your bagel bins.

Bread Boxes

Like bagel bins, bread boxes function exactly the way their name implies. They organize, store, and display your store’s breads. You can find acrylic roll top bread boxes with as few as one shelf, or horizontal or vertical acrylic bread boxes with several shelves.

Also like bagel bins, bread boxes are multifunctional. You don’t have to display just bread in a bread box; you might want to showcase bagels, muffins, cupcakes, or cookies in these boxes, too.

Bakery Cabinets

Think of bakery cabinets as the larger, more involved cousins of bagel bins and bread boxes.

Bakery cabinets are generally made of acrylic and large enough to hold either many more baked good items than bagel bins or bread boxes, or larger baked good items like entire loafs of bread. You can find bakery cabinets with as few as one or two cabinets or as many as six or more cabinets.

Pie Cases

If your bakery sells pies, you must have a pie case or two to display them!

Pie cases are generally sturdy acrylic display containers with several shelves for holding the pies. Pie cases have rear hinged doors so you can easily remove the pies your customers want to purchase, and they’re often in hexagon shapes designed to best fit the pies. Countertops are the best places to situate pie cases because they offer you the easiest access when you need to put pies in them – and take them out!

Gravity Bins

Because much of their baked goods consist of breakfast items, bakeries often sell other breakfast items like cereal. If this sounds like your bakery, you must look into containers that will properly organize, store, and display those items.

Cereals, for example, are best contained in gravity bins. These bins are designed to either hang on your wall or mount to your countertop, and they allow your customers to dispense as much cereal as they want while keeping the rest of the product fresh and safe from contamination.

Plexi Displays

Maybe you plan to sell more than just baked goods in your bakery, such as unwrapped candies. Or, perhaps you plan to offer your customers the freedom of choosing their own cupcake toppings and decorations.

Whatever the case, consider plexi displays with enough drawers to hold all the extra items you need to display.

Traditional Plastic Containers

Traditional plastic containers are perfect for every kind of business – bakeries included!

These containers come in a variety of shapes, sizes and styles, and for food cleanliness and customer convenience, you can find handgrip containers, containers with lids, and containers with aluminum and plastic scoops.