Innovative Ideas in Product PackagingAs the market for your product evolves, the way it's packaged may need to change, too

In 2010, when Veronica Rains and her partner, Jeffrey Bailey, startedWholesome Chowin Los Osos, Calif., their approach was hands-on, to say the least. They made the organic, gluten-free, vegan baking mixes in a commercial kitchen, did the packaging and labeling themselves and sold their product at a local farmers market.

When health-food stores started stocking the mixes, Rains was thrilled--and overwhelmed. "We were hand-mixing all of our product, printing our own labels, sifting everything, portioning it into bags, sealing and labeling the bags. It was a lot of work," she recalls.