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Regulatory Actions, New Products Drive Child-Resistant Packaging Innovations
Why expanding regulations and tougher enforcement are reshaping packaging requirements across CPG categories.
Recent regulatory actions at both the state and federal levels, most notably Florida's tightening requirements for hemp products (including multi-serving beverages) and the Food and Drug Administration's public health focus on nicotine pouches, are accelerating innovation in child-resistant-capable (CRC) packaging across the U.S. As enforcement becomes more visible, CRC is rapidly expanding beyond its historical strongholds in pharmaceuticals and household chemicals into emerging and regulated product categories.
For brand owners, CRC and increasingly child-resistant senior-friendly (CRSF) performance is no longer a niche compliance requirement. It’s a strategic design and commercialization decision that intersects consumer safety, retail readiness, brand trust, sustainability, and speed to market, especially as novel formats like multi-serve beverages, flexible packaging, and specialty closures move into the regulatory spotlight.
Regulations Expand, Enforcement Intensifies
Child-resistant-capable packaging requirements in the U.S. trace back to the 1970 Poison Prevention Packaging Act (PPPA), administered by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) since 1973. Historically, enforcement focused on pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and select household chemicals.
Today, regulatory oversight is expanding. In September 2025, the U.S. FDA urged child-resistant-capable packaging for nicotine pouches to protect children from accidental, harmful exposure. Over a three-year period from April 2022 through March 2025, approximately 72% of nicotine pouch exposure cases involved children under 5 years of age.
Meanwhile, states continue to tighten packaging and labeling rules for cannabis, CBD, and hemp-derived THC products. Last year, Florida began requiring CRC packaging for all hemp and hemp extract products intended for human consumption. During the first five weeks of enforcement in July 2025, Florida removed over 150,000 packages of hemp products from retailers and manufacturers for violations related to packaging, labeling, and marketing.
Enforcement is increasingly visible. Recent recalls involving liquid medications, super glue, vitamins, vape liquids, and supplements highlight that packaging violations are actively policed and often publicly reported.
Canada mirrors these trends, with federal regulations covering CRC packaging for consumer chemical products, cosmetics, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and other products.
What Is Child-Resistant Packaging and What Defines Compliance?
CRC packaging is designed to significantly reduce the risk that children under five years of age can access potentially harmful products, while remaining usable for adults. It is important to note that child-resistant does not imply childproof. Instead, it means the packaging creates a significant barrier to entry by requiring coordinated actions, dexterity, strength, or cognitive understanding that young children typically lack.
Critically, child-resistant is determined by performance testing, not design intent, visual cues, or marketing claims. Under PPPA protocols, packaging systems must pass formal child panel and adult panel testing, demonstrating that 80% of children cannot open the package within a specified timeframe, while 90% of adults can open and properly reclose it.
Equally important, compliance applies to the entire package: container, closure, materials, and, where applicable, secondary packaging. Brand owners must treat child-resistant packaging as a system, not a single component. Increasingly, regulators and manufacturers are balancing safety with accessibility, ensuring packages remain functional for seniors and consumers with limited dexterity.
While suppliers play a fundamental role in child-resistant packaging, the brand owner of the filled product/packaging is wholly responsible for certifying that its CRC packaging meets all regulatory requirements, not the packaging vendor(s).
New Product Categories
The most significant shift in recent years is the range of products now subject to child-resistant scrutiny. Cannabis edibles and beverages, hemp-derived THC and CBD products, nicotine pouches, e-liquids, iron-containing supplements, adhesives, hearing aids, and even select cosmetic formats are being pulled into regulatory focus.
Considering the expanding requirements, brand owners and packaging teams need to proactively audit their SKUs, formats, and geographies to identify where CRC requirements may apply or are likely to apply next. Waiting for enforcement or recall activity increases regulatory, financial, and reputational risk.
Many of these new and emerging products are sold in formats, such as flexible pouches, aluminum cans, droppers, jars, and specialty bottles, which were not originally engineered with child-resistant capabilities in mind. At the same time, consumers expect premium aesthetics, intuitive opening, accessibility, and sustainability, while regulators require demonstrable child-resistant products. The result is a growing need for rigid and flexible packaging solutions that combine safety, usability, and brand differentiation without slowing commercialization.
In addition, packaging teams must ensure that these new CRC packaging formats suit their manufacturing operations, from fill rates and line speeds to new tooling and quality assurance testing.
Closure Evolution and Innovation
Early generations of child-resistant packaging were engineered with a singular objective: safety. Push-and-turn caps and blister packs sealed with heavy-gauge foil quickly became industry standards, significantly reducing accidental product ingestions among children. However, these force-dependent designs proved difficult to open for many seniors and individuals with limited strength or dexterity.
This issue led to senior-friendly testing protocols and design changes that balance child safety with adult usability, placing greater emphasis on mental ingenuity than brute force. Today’s CRC packaging solutions span rigid and flexible formats, including pop-top jars with concealed release mechanisms, blister packs with peel-push designs, squeeze-and-turn caps with larger gripping surfaces, trigger sprayers with CRC devices, and dispensing caps with integrated child-resistant features.
Newer closure technologies include one-handed caps with no-torque opening, over-caps or lids for aluminum cans, push-and-flip closures, zipper pouches with lift-then-slide, pinch-and-slide, peel-then-open, and other child-resistant mechanisms, and flexible packaging with CRC spouts.
To meet the needs of eco-conscious millennials, Prestone launched a new anti-freeze product in a flexible pouch with a certified child-resistant pour spout, according to an article in Packaging World magazine. The product comes in quart-size packaging for top-off applications, something that millennials and women identified in consumer research. The pouch, which uses 60% less plastic than a 1-gallon jug, is self-standing without the need for secondary packaging.
Compliance and Sustainability Converge
Like other packaging categories, sustainability is now a core consideration in child-resistant packaging designs. Brand owners face increasing pressure from consumers, retailers, and regulators to reduce single-use plastic, improve recyclability, increase the use of recycled content, and meet ESG commitments.
This convergence is driving adoption of lighter-weight rigid formats, recyclable flexible packaging with integrated child-resistant closures, and mono-material designs that simplify recycling.
Paperboard and fiber-based child-resistant formats are entering the market, responding to sustainability mandates and concerns over plastic waste. Recent launches of recyclable, child-resistant paperboard packaging for products like laundry pods and child-resistant paper tubes for pre-roll cannabis products signal that safety and sustainability can work together.
Last year, Radienz Living, a leading private label and contract manufacturer of home and personal care products, introduced the first certified child-resistant, curbside-recyclable paperboard package for laundry pods. Constructed from 50% recycled fiber content and prequalified as "Widely Recyclable" by How2Recycle, the carton is engineered to be difficult for children to open and intuitive for adults, closing with an audible click for added security.
From a supply chain perspective, the detergent packaging offers several advantages for retailers and consumers. The carton is 10% more space efficient than flexible pouches. The product ships in its own container, meeting durability standards for e-commerce and large-format retail stores. It is top load tested to 400 lbs. for self-palletization.
Berlin Packaging serves as a strategic partner for brand owners requiring child-resistant-capable packaging across regulated and emerging CPG categories. We offer an extensive portfolio of CRC packaging solutions, including glass and plastic bottles, pop-top jars and containers, flexible bags, caps, droppers, vials, tins, and pre-configured kits designed to function as integrated systems. These products support applications ranging from pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals to cannabis, hemp, adult beverages, household chemicals, and specialty consumer products.
By supplying compatible containers, closures, and accessories as cohesive solutions, Berlin Packaging helps brands reduce regulatory risk, streamline sourcing, and accelerate speed to market. This integrated model supports compliance with North American regulatory requirements, enabling CPG companies to navigate complex, multi-state, or cross-border regulatory environments.
Beyond compliance, Berlin Packaging enables brands to turn child-resistant packaging into a competitive advantage. Studio One Eleven, our innovation and design services engine, can create tailored CRC packaging systems to meet branding, sustainability, and adult usability goals without compromising safety. Combined with deep quality and regulatory expertise, Berlin Packaging delivers child-resistant solutions that protect consumers, strengthen brand equity, and support long-term growth.
Look Strategically at CRC Packaging
For CPG brand owners, child-resistant packaging should be viewed more as a strategic differentiator than as a compliance obligation. The consequences of getting it wrong, such as costly product recalls, fines and penalties, reputational damage, and lost retail opportunities, are significant and growing. Conversely, brands that invest early in certified, scalable, and user-friendly child-resistant solutions are better positioned to enter regulated categories quickly and capture market share.
The most successful brands take a system-level approach: aligning container, closure, and secondary packaging; planning for multi-market regulatory requirements; and designing packaging that protects children without alienating adult consumers. As regulations evolve and new product categories continue to emerge, CRC packaging will remain a critical driver of innovation, differentiation, market success, and long-term brand protection.
The brands mentioned in this report are trademarks of their respective owners. Inclusion of these brands in this report is not meant to imply an association with or endorsement from the respective trademark owners.
This article is provided for general informational purposes only and reflects information available at the time of publication. It does not guarantee completeness or ongoing accuracy and is not a substitute for reviewing current government regulations, industry standards, or requirements specific to your business. Nothing herein should be construed as legal advice. Customers are responsible for determining whether their products are subject to applicable regulations and for ensuring compliance, and should consult relevant standards or legal counsel as appropriate.