As the packaging and displays that designers create move downstream toward the store shelf, they are increasingly stopping off at a contract packager's facility for pack-out.

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CPGs want dead-on color accuracy while also improving package the printing-process. Prepress is where it all has to happen.

Printers use the term prepress to describe what happens between the final package design and the actual package printing. In today’s demanding retail environment, its importance has increased for brand managers as they strive to succeed in package development.

Here’s why: Brand managers have to be mindful of the packaging demands of not only consumers but now the most influential retailers as well.

“We see how often the CPG companies aren’t really in control of the package at times—it’s the big retailers,” says Mark Vanover, Director of Marketing at Esko-Graphics, a supplier of pre-press solutions for printers.

By helping to set up and manage a prepress process, a brand manager can ensure that the packaging colors match what consumer focus groups liked, as well as the specifications set forth by packaging engineers and designers.