Best in Packaging

I Moved My Blog

2009-06-30T17:19:00.000-07:00

As of July 01 all new articles are posted on my new blog: "Best In Packaging", which you can find here.

Hope to see you there

Anton Steeman

Vitro’s Perfume Bottles Difficult to Falsify - True Glow of Avon

2009-06-25T08:13:00.000-07:00

Many products are targeted by counterfeiters when it is easy to copy their packaging. If the product manufacturer uses undifferentiated bottles and boxes the counterfeiter can easily obtain the same materials and use desktop publishing systems to print packages and create counterfeit labels.
The counterfeit market is a multi-billion dollar market. The counterfeiter prefers a strong brand since it equates to higher-priced merchandise. It is therefore not a surprise that counterfeiting perfumes is a hot item, as confusion is another ally of the counterfeiter. If there are many different, ever-changing versions of the packaging, and that’s the case in the perfume market, how is the consumer to know when a new product package arri ... read more

90512

Counterfeiting: The Industry is on the Wrong Track

2009-06-24T19:21:00.000-07:00

Many products targeted by counterfeiters are very easy to copy due to their simple-to-copy packaging. Undifferentiated packaging is one of the first things to be addressed to, to stop making it easy for the counterfeiter to copy. But that’s not the case with perfumes and up-scale alcohol beverages. With designers having all the freedom to create the most fantastic and sometimes exclusive bottles, the danger of being illegally copied is not the undifferentiated packaging, but confusion.

Confusion, a strong ally of the counterfeiter, occurs when the consumer is confronted with many different, ever-changing versions of the packaging. How is the consumer to know when a new product package arrives that it isn't legitimate? You just have to do a Google search for some upscale perfume brand to discover how many different bottles and packages the brand carries, and introducing new ones with high frequency.

The brand doesn’t have a choice, as the market is plummeting, companies are desperately trying to keep the attention of the consumer by creating new presentations and fragrances, knowing perfectly well that they give counterfeiters innumerable chances to fake the brand, not necessary to copy the packaging.

And the consumer? He has nothing other in his hands to qualify a product as genuine, than his confidence in the retailer. As counterfeit products are unstoppably turning up on shop shelves with fakes simply being knock-offs, relabelled sister products, a mix of fake and genuine product, or a refill masquerading as a virgin product, the consumer may become victim of a do-it-yourself counterfeiter or of a vertically integrated international operating counterfeiting organization including well-established factories, international distribution chains and distinguished retailers. The consumer’s trusted store could be an unsuspecting conduit or a complice in the crime. One thing is clear: the problem is getting worse.

So, what is the answer of the industry?
There is a tremendous array of companies providing security systems, such as special papers, inks, foils, holograms, taggants, built-in electronics, authentication codes or even forensic authentication tests. Most brand owners know they cannot rely on a single method, so they deploy a variety of defence systems that incorporates overt and covert elements. The overt elements, like watermarks or optically-varying inks, serve as a very public warning, but can be easily counterfeited to either duplicate or obtain similar materials. Covert effects remain hidden from the consumer and often require special instruments for detection.

The covert elements: You can’t expect the consumer to walk around with an infra-red detector or any other hi-tech device in his/her shopping bag.
And the overt elements: This is what happens when the consumer sees a hologram and assumes that any hologram must be genuine. Who can distinguish a genuine hologram from a fake one the moment you decide to buy?
The problem is, the consumer expects the partners in the distribution chain to be honest, but in many cases they are not and partner-up with the counterfeiter in order to maximize their bottom-line.

To this problem the industry answers with the most fantastic, mouth watering technological and intellectual tour-de-force, entirely forgetting what the real goal is in his battle against counterfeiting. The goal should be the consumer and not exposing the counterfeiter. A common misconception is that a counterfeiter will quit the practice if he gets caught ........

For a counterfeiter, success is having every non-complicit person handling the product downstream to accept the fakes as legitimate products. The products do not need to be exact copies, only good enough to fool those handling or buying the goods.

In his article “Authentication - are brands under siege?” in Packaging World Magazine of December 2008, Pat Reynolds has an interview with Randy Allen, vice president of operations of OPI Products a manufacturer of beauty products. In this interview Mr. Allen states that he “is working closely with a number of ink suppliers and manufacturers of marking and coding equipment to come up with better anti-diversion solutions that are covert in nature. He sees special promise in infrared inks and what he calls “narrow-spectrum readability”.
Unlike a broad-spectrum UV-type light such as black light, which makes everything readable, infrared inks are only excited and made readable by a narrow range of light frequencies.”
The other key strategy that Allen is exploring is “to incorporate a covert diversion-tracking code within the batch code. This twin code would be ink-jet-printed on a label that goes on the bottom of OPI containers. If diverters discover this code and try to remove it, they’ll be tampering not only with a diversion-tracking code, but also with a batch code that is incorporated into the diversion-tracking code. Removing a diversion-tracking code so that product can be diverted is not illegal, but defacing a batch code is.”
And then he explains why he is doing all this research:
“That takes it out of civil court and puts it into the criminal court system,” says Allen. “That’s huge, because in criminal court, the identity of the distributor who is doing the diverting will be revealed. That doesn’t happen in civil court cases that we bring against a retailer selling diverted product.”

And that is exactly what happens with the ‘war against drugs’. Catch a guy, get him convicted, turn around and discover that he is replaced by ten others. Counterfeiting doesn’t go away by putting the tugs in prison.
All hi-tech solutions, as inks, authentication, tracking and tracing are useless. You can only track and trace your own genuine products, not the counterfeited ones as they don’t have the codes. So, what happens: You discover a non-coded fake. What does it give you? In the meantime consumers have bought a fake and are disappointed by the quality, taste, fragrance and never buy again.

The industry has to go back to the basics. And the basics are its consumers. It is the consumer who decides to buy. And there is no consumer willing to buy an expensive perfume or liquor knowing it is not genuine. He/she will go for the original. That means that the industry, suffering under counterfeiting attacks, has to supply a tool to the consumer. A way the consumer can easily verify whether the product is genuine or false. All covert security measures are useless and are only of interest to the company itself, the consumer needs an overt system which enables him to check the authenticity of the product.

Back to the basics implies a simple tool the consumer can handle and always has available. His cell phone or mobile phone. Both RFID labels and 2D bar codes can be faked and don’t give a 100% guarantee to the consumer but can be used in combination with ...... nano-technology.

A new collaboration between Life Technologies and NanoSys is aimed at developing quantum dots, also known as fluorescent nano-crystals, to provide what they claim a unique fingerprint, a forge-proof stamp of authenticity to fight counterfeiting.

The nano-crystals can be mixed in ink and printed onto surfaces in a precise pattern of colours, providing a fingerprint effectively invisible to the naked eye, detectable under blue, violet or ultraviolet light to specifically identify the source of the product as authentic. However the unique fingerprint only can be visualized with a special detection device.

That is exactly the mistake the entire industry is making. The fluorescent nano-crystals might create a unique fingerprint but they are not visual to the naked eye. When starts the industry to realize that the solution to counterfeiting is the consumer. The nano-fingerprint, however, is a promising start.

I think it is time for a roundtable conference between the suppliers of anti-counterfeit systems, consumer products companies and mobile telephone manufacturers to create a counterfeit-system which the consumer can easily handle and gives him the guarantee that a product is genuine.

The challenge of brand authentication remains and won’t be going away anytime soon. The industry has to do something substantial and stop fighting windmills.

Update: The day after I wrote this article I received the daily newsletter from PackWorld, in which Pat Reynolds in his article “Authentication that also engages consumers”, argues that the industry is moving towards inclusion of the consumer in regard to anti-counterfeiting. Unfortunately the systems he describes, including the computer-authentication-code which the consumer can call-in with his cell phone, has proven not be reliable. The counterfeiter can mislead the system very easily and the industries involved could not supply me with satisfying answers as a counterfeiter could buy a genuine product and then copy the number. The first time the code is registered the system will confirm that the code is genuine. However, and most importantly, subsequent attempts to register the code will confirm that the code has been previously checked. This is a red flag that should raise concerns and alert the consumer to a potential problem with their product.

photos courtesy: MicroSoft, Pro-tex, eProvenance, HP's Digital Printing & Imaging, Kodak.

90512

An Exotic Change of Scenery

2009-06-22T08:20:00.000-07:00

A major player on the highly competitive Finnish wine market, the Franco-British wine dealer and producer, Boutinot, introduced its two South-African Seriti wines in a distinctive exotic style. The Seriti Chenin Blanc features the delicate detail of a zebra skin, while the Seriti Merlot wine opted for the might of the cheetah.

Boutinot, a Cheshire-based wine production and distribution company, always has sought to remove the aura of elitism which has surrounded wine drinking, with light-hearted brand names such as "Old Git" and "Old Tart" carrying labels with caricatures of old gits and old tarts. Others are named "Italia" or "Big Mamma's Italian Red" and a best-selling French wine is calle ... read more

90611

Aluminium Bottles for Wine adding Value to the Drinking Experience

2009-06-20T09:43:00.000-07:00

In a recent study conducted by Owens-Illinois which polled nearly 150 wineries in the USA, glass was still the highest used packaging material with 99-100% of the wineries still using glass packaging, despite the fact that between 17-20 percent of the surveyed wineries had plans to chang their packaging mix in the future. Apparently glass will still be the preferred packaging material by the majority of wineries.

A short study conducted by GfK among wine consumers of 9 European countries (Germany, France, UK, Italy, Netherlands, Austria, Spain, Russia, Poland) brought good news to wine brands: European consumers are loyal to their favourite brands. I haven’t data about the consumer loyalty in the US, the third-largest wine market in the world, where consumption rose 16% between 2003 and 2008, and is expected to increase another 7% by 2013, according to Euromonitor. Like Australia, the US wine consumer might be more open to packaging innovations, although the Owens-Illinois study suggests otherwise.

The stuffy wine industry which is still overwhelmingly marketing its products in the old industry-standard glass bottles with the same old, uninspiring labels, sees some progressive wineries executing a packaging design revolution in their attempt to attract new consumers. Success in the wine market comes from being chic, relevant, drink accessible, and importantly single serve. A lot of new wine brands created innovative packages that let to the introduction of the MonOxbar-PET bottles of Constar (see picture), the bag-in-boxes in various, even exclusive designs, TetraPaks in all its variations, South African’s Astra Winebag and even stand-up pouches, but aluminium containers always have been left alone.

Although in the US aluminium bottles in several market segments of beverages are not uncommon, the wine industry have never looked at aluminium, probably due to the generally accepted assumption that wine and aluminium (even with a inside liner) are not merging well together.

The US beer brewers have proven that aluminium bottles are a perfect marketing tool. Graphic designs with brushed metal effects or pure white and gold create a distinctive visual identity and immediately position the products in the premium segments. Limited editions, special events collectors as well as mass market productions are possible. Presented individually or in prestigious presentation packs the bottles offer fatal attraction. The aluminium bottle chills rapidly and offers a cool and refreshing touch. It is ideal for both on and off premises drinking occasions, in bars and pubs or in outdoor and travel areas. Ultra-light and shatterproof, the aluminium bottle offers total mobility and is one of the few materials to be able to be recycled over and over again in a closed loop process where aluminium cans are turned back into aluminium cans using only 5% of the original energy. The reduced carbon footprint emanating from the adoption of the aluminium packaging format is a major attraction for many consumers and the industry as a whole.

But there still stands the technical problem: aluminium and wine don’t digest each other.

Australian Barokes
We all know how much Australians love the outdoors. So, as a consequence Australian Barokes Wines, a South Melbourne-based firm, led the way to replace glass bottles as challenging environmental and recycling issues continue to emerge. A leader since 1996 in innovative wine packaging, Barokes developed an environmentally friendly wine packaging, the ‘Wine-in-a-Can’, which they called Vinsafe.

Barokes is unique in that they have perfected the technology to produce premium wine in an individually sized, sealed 250 ml aluminium can. Using their proprietary innovative Vinsafe wine packaging system Barokes has produced a range of wines renowned for premium quality, stability and longevity (up to 5 years to date).

The Australian Barokes wines come in various styles (varietals and blends) and even in a 4-can pack.

Last year, with the success of winning a Silver Medal for their Sparkling Chardonnay and Merit Award for their Chardonnay at the Wine for Asia Singapore Expo the product is firmly making a significant impact in the wine markets of Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, New Zealand and of course Australia where it originated. Even in Japan with its very stringent packaging requirements, it has been granted a Japanese patent for its innovative product.

The first question which arises is of course: Doesn’t the wine have a ‘tinny’ or ‘aluminium’ taste’?
According to the company, the patented Vinsafe technology includes the specifications for: wine construction (minimal preservatives and/or additives); specialised filling requirements (wine stabilisation and exclusion of oxygen); and, the unique can lining to ensure there is no contact between the wine and the can. Barokes proves this with regular independent scientific analysis to assure quality and non-interaction with the can lining.

Being a small company it is obvious that Barokes had to defend its patent against the big players in the aluminium can market. After a three-year dispute in Australia, where Barokes successfully defended Vinsafe’s patent against a challenge from global packaging firm Amcor Packaging, they were back in Court on 17 February 2009, this time at the European Patent Office (EPO) in The Hague/The Netherlands against some of the world’s largest packaging companies, including Rexam Beverage Can Company, Crown Packaging UK and Ball Packaging Europe. Barokes was successful as the patent hearing panel unanimously confirmed the validity of Barokes’ patent for Vinsafe in Europe.

Ok, Barokes won the patent struggle in Europe, but they still have to conquer the European wine market, which as I said earlier is loyal to its existing brands and with that to its traditional glass bottle packaging. Or, as some blogger, defined it:
“My French opinion is that wine is a noble nectar you MUST NOT treat as ordinary soda! To me, wine is not just a drink; wine is a philosophy, the Epicurean's religion. My French culture and education forces me to consider that drinking wine in a can is an aberration!!”

At the final end, Europe is, and always will be, the ‘old world’. And I might add particularly with wine. Australia doesn’t have the traditions in wine as Europe has. Or is even that changing .......?

Boxal’s Aluminium Wine Bottles
In contrast to the ‘soda-like’ aluminium cans, Boxal introduced the aluminium wine bottle with the goal to add value to the drinking experience. And don’t be shocked when you discover that Boxal is a French company with headquarters in Beaurepaire, manufacturing aluminium containers.

French being French they offer an elegant alternative to the ‘soda-like’ Australian wine-in-a-can. How they solved the ‘negative interaction’ between aluminium and wine, without infringing the Australian patent, is not known. They might as well, due to the recent decision of the Euro Patent Office, use a license from Barokes.

What ever the case Boxal enriched the wine market with some interesting aluminium wine bottles. In strategy, as well as in its products, it is a little more subtle and elegant than its Australian counterparts. Ok Prosecco and Britz by Santero in Italy, Glitter & Gold by In-spirit in Germany are perfect examples. The same is true of the young Bordeaux-based Lubie.

Instead of aiming at the general wine market, Lubie focuses at young and upper-scale consumers, mostly the young crowds in night clubs and outdoor activities. Their very first target is feminine, since they describe the wine as “feminine, natural, contemporary and self-indulgent”. Women are more sensitive to an elegant and unusual packaging as it is much more fun to show up at a party with your pack of four small bottles of wine instead of a regular wine bottle.

Lubie’s 25 cl Red, Rosé and White Sauvignon offer a comprehensive, exclusive and innovative range using soft colours and light brushed metal effects. Presented individually or in prestigious presentation packs the trio offers tremendous attraction.

Aluminium wine bottles might, after all, conquer the European market.

90558

Decorating a Champagne Bottle

2009-06-18T08:31:00.000-07:00

Created in 1983, the Taittinger Collection combines the genius of modern artists and the art of champagne. The collection is a series of limited-edition champagne bottles encased in a shell specially created by an artist to pay tribute to this wine.

This year artist, decorating the bottle for the Taittinger Brut Millésimé 2000, a blend of 50% Chardonnay and 50% Pinot Noir, is the American painter Robert Rauschenberg, well-known for his “Combine” works that integrate the aspects of painting and sculpture. The Rauschenberg Bottle, is encased in a moulded “shell” of DuPont Crastin PBT, and decorated using DuPont dye-sublimation technology - selected for its ability to accurately reproduce delicate artwork on complex shapes.

The artwork created by Rauschenberg for the 11th edition of Taittinger Champagne uses a largely chromatic, but a very subtle palette of colours, with very light and “faded-looking” tones of mauve, brown and yellow, together with large areas of dark grey and black.
3D-sublimation printing was the most effective way of reproducing these very delicate colours on such a complex shape. 3D-sublimation printing requires a material for the shell that resists the temperatures incurred during the sublimation process. This ruled out ABS, the polymer initially foreseen for the application and used in previous years, while DuPont’s Crastin demonstrated to provide the best combination of temperature resistance, colour reproduction and post-shrinkage.

Dye sublimation is a dye-transfer process, developed in the 1960s for use in textiles, since then advanced to provide wear-resistant, full-colour surface decoration of three-dimensional products.
Developed by Kolorfusion International Inc., the technology allows for transfer of a full spectrum of colours, shades, and designs to a variety of surfaces, including plastics, metals and glass.

When the dyes are heated in this transfer process, they vaporize, and if they are in close proximity to a suitable substrate, such as a plastic or coating, the vapours penetrate the adjacent substrate by around 0.002 in. (0,005 mm) up to 0.25 in. (0,635 mm). The plastic substrate must be able to withstand temperatures of 280 to 375 ºF (138 to 190 ºC) necessary to vaporize the dye.

Since the dyes are transparent, the substrate should be light in colour (white, light grey or beige). If the plastic substrate is translucent, it will remain translucent after colouring. The lighter the substrate colour, the better the result of this process.
For 3D decoration, Kolorfusion typically prints the design on an air-permeable and flexible textile-based medium called Kolortex. This is then placed around the object, which is put into a high-temperature film bag from which the air is pulled, forcing the textile to tighten around the substrate. The vacuum bag with the part is then placed in an oven for 5 to 40 min.

The process was developed as an alternative to the dipping process developed by Cubic Printing of Japan. That method involves floating a pre-printed film on a pool of liquid, allowing the film to dissolve and leaving a floating layer of inks into which the substrate is dipped. This is a very expensive process and not as durable as dye sublimation, as it does not penetrate the part. Compared with the dip process, dye sublimation is some 20% to 40% lower in cost.

DuPont's PBT, PET, acetal, and nylon resins are among those materials that are suited to the process.

The dye sublimation technology for the Taittinger Champagne bottle was developed by DuPont in partnership with Pacific Colour, of Lons-le-Saunier, France.

90518

Coca-Cola’s innovative renewable, recyclable, plant-based plastic bottle

2009-06-16T16:36:00.000-07:00

The "PlantBottle", made partially from plants, is fully recyclable, has a lower reliance on non-renewable resources, and reduces carbon emissions, compared with petroleum-based PET bottles.
Traditional PET bottles are made from petroleum, a non-renewable resource. The new bottle is made from a blend of petroleum-based materials and up to 30 percent plant-based materials.

"The Coca-Cola Company is a company with the power to transform the marketplace, and the introduction of the "PlantBottle" is yet another great example of their leadership on environmental issues," said Carter Roberts, President and CEO of World Wildlife Fund, U.S.

Before we describe the PlantBottle in detail, let’s have a look at the sustainability and recyclability of renewable resources first. Is the PlantBottle a “great example” as the World Wildlife Fund claims?

Apart from overflowing landfills and shameful dispositions in nature, petroleum based plastic is responsible for the deaths of millions of sea creatures and has, as the story goes (I have never been able to check it) created a plastic garbage island twice the size of Texas in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

In the industrialized world, packaging for all types of products has become both necessary and truly ubiquitous. As more people become "modern consumers" around the world, it is an increasing burden on producers, individuals, and the environment. According to a new study from Pike Research, sustainable packaging is a fast-growing segment of the global packaging industry, and will grow to 32% of the total market by 2014, up from just 21% in 2009.

"The $429 billion global packaging industry is huge but extremely fragmented, with no clear market leaders," says Pike’s managing director Clint Wheelock. "As such, the move toward sustainable packaging represents a broad-based effort by manufacturers, retailers, industry groups, and governments to promote the design of minimal packaging that can be easily reclaimed. A tremendous amount of innovation is going into reducing energy requirements to manufacture packaging and using more recyclable and compostable materials, but there is still a long way to go."

The market intelligence firm forecasts that plastic-based packaging, which represents 35% of all materials used, will be the fastest-growing sector of the sustainable packaging market over the next five years.

But there is a little problem, as Napcor (National Association for PET Container Resources) calls for restraint in the use of degradable additives in PET packaging. Napcor, the trade organization for the PET packaging industry, is concerned that no data has been made publicly available to substantiate or document:
1) the claims of degradability of PET resin products containing degradable additives;
2) the effect of degradable additives on the quality of the PET recycling stream;
3) the impacts of degradable additives on the products made from recycled PET; and
4) the true impact on the service life of these products.

In this light Napcor urges manufacturers of PET resin and packaging to refrain from introductions of degradable additive-containing products until data is made available for review and verification.

In 2007, 1.4 billion pounds of post-consumer PET containers were recycled in the United States. The post consumer recycled PET infrastructure depends on the quality of the recyclate and its suitability for a variety of next-life product applications. The value of recycled materials, such as PET, is an important economic driver for curb-side recycling programs throughout the country.

Aside from the potential impacts on recycling, Napcor questions the value of the concept itself. Whether or not it’s proven that packaging will safely degrade in landfills, or as roadside or marine litter, the value of the inherent energy used in the manufacture of plastic packaging is lost, not recaptured as it is through a recycling and re-manufacturing process.

“Even if a package were to disappear or fragment - and we’ve not yet seen this evidence - it would not make the package sustainable, nor does it provide any positive impacts in terms of greenhouse gas emissions or resource conservation,” said Mr. Sabourin, Napcor’s Executive Director. “Degrading plastic provides no useful nutrients to the soil, and the impacts to soil and sea of reducing the plastic to molecules using degradable additives is unknown.”

What does that mean for Coca Cola’s PlantBottle? In the first place, Coca Cola claims that, unlike other plant-based plastics, the PlantBottle can be processed through existing manufacturing and recycling facilities without contaminating traditional PET. So, apparently the material of the PlantBottle does not bio-degrade, but can be recycled without contaminating the PET recycling process.

The PlantBottle is currently made through an innovative process that turns sugar cane and molasses, a by-product of sugar production, into a key component for PET plastic. Coca-Cola states that it is also exploring the use of other plant materials for future generations of the PlantBottle.

Manufacturing the new plastic bottle is more environmentally efficient as well. A life-cycle analysis conducted by Imperial College London indicates the PlantBottle with 30 percent plant-base material reduces carbon emissions by up to 25 percent, compared with petroleum-based PET.

Coca-Cola North America will pilot the PlantBottle in select markets with Dasani water.

The PlantBottle is undoubtedly an interesting development, as it reduces carbon emissions by some 25% compared to petroleum-based bottles. That's a drastic cut in emissions considering the millions of Dasani bottles manufactured each year. It's a great marketing tool too, as Coca Cola plans on identifying the bottles with "on-package messaging and in-store point of sale displays".

Earlier this year, Coca Cola opened the world's largest plastic bottle-to-bottle recycling plant in South Carolina. The plant will produce approximately 100 million pounds (45.359 mtons) of recycled PET plastic for reuse each year - the equivalent of nearly 2 billion 20-ounce (593 ml) Coca Cola bottles.

90537

Recycling PET-bottles for Executive Suits

2009-06-14T14:18:00.000-07:00

It is seldom that a well-dressed young female executive turns up in my blog. But this is different.
How many women are out there willing to wear a suit made from recycled PET-bottles?

Using recycled PET-bottles in clothing is not new. Polar fleece, usually referred to simply as "fleece", was created in 1979 by Malden Mills, now Polartec LLC. They came up with a soft napped insulating synthetic wool fabric made from (recycled) PET or other synthetic fibres. A material meant to mimic and in some ways surpass wool. Fleece has some of wool's finest qualities but weighs a fraction of the lightest available woollens. It is used in casual jackets, and outdoor outfits.

Last year I wrote the article “A Samurai outfit made from PET-bottles”. Kosuke Tsumura, designer for the urban survival clothing brand Final Home in Japan added an extra dimension to the recycling possibilities of PET-bottles. Not recycling to fleece material, but creating fashionable albeit not effective armour and combat suits by slicing up PET-bottles and sewing them together.
The armour will not stand up against the slightest battle and moving around may be a problem, but for a party anybody wearing it looks fashionable and cool in this samurai design.

Although interesting with regards to recycling the billions of PET-bottles the world is throwing away daily on landfills, it was primarily a ‘fashion joke’. However it certainly was also the beginning of a new era for the re-use of discarded PET-bottles.

Eying the current credit crunch, in which people are looking for good value and still wanting to keep up their commitment to sustainability, Debenhams, a High Street department store in the UK, introduced a female business suit created entirely (although I doubt that) out of recycled plastic bottles. According to Debenhams, the ultimate eco-friendly outfit is equally friendly priced at £55 (€ 65).

The project to create clothing from 100 per cent recycled sources has taken the fashion retailer 12 months to perfect. The resulting expertly tailored trouser suits look and feel like any other outfit created for smart female executives.

Each suit is made from 50 bottles which are put through a special process. The bottles are cleaned and have their labels removed before being ground down into chips which are melted at a plant in Taiwan. The mixture is then refined and woven into a soft but hard-wearing type of polyester. The suit is made in Vietnam.

A spokesman for Debenhams claims that the single-button jacket and the boot-cut trousers will tempt the ' fashion conscious' shopper and 'would not look out of place in the boardroom'.

And here is an expert review from some fashion website: “Although its polyester feel may not be luxurious enough for everyone, the unique jacket and trouser suits from Collection, Debenhams own brand, do not compromise on style. The single-buttoned jacket is nipped in at the waist with a subtle herringbone lining, while the trousers have a modern shape with a boot-cut finish, ensuring the suit ticks all the right boxes for the fashion conscious female.”

Debenhams claims its eco-suit is an innovation which saves energy, reduces CO2 emissions and cuts down land-fill sites, making it the perfect outfit for eco-friendly fashionistas.

An outfit for life as PET doesn’t biodegrade.

90561

Danimals Yogurt in CrushPaks

2009-06-10T14:41:00.000-07:00

In May 2003, EverEdge IP (formerly Inveratek, Auckland/New Zealand) began the development of a revolutionary packaging technology for viscous foods such as yogurts, jellies, condiments and sauces. The challenge was simple: to update the fundamentally old technology currently used to package dairy and other viscous food products by focusing on modern consumers' increasing demands for convenience and “on-the-go” products. The result was CrushPak.

CrushPak containers are moulded with accordion-style pleated sides from a standard polystyrene plastic with a small addition of rubberiser or elasticiser but in all other respects stock material. The packs are deliberately not labelled on the sides to allow the consumer to see the bellows of the accordion design.

With the ability to be manufactured on existing machinery, CrushPak can be made in virtually any dimension or shape like 30 gram packs, rectangles, ovals etc, and is suitable for most viscous products including jellies, fruit pulps, condiments, sauces, pastes and sorbets.

In 2006 New Zealanders were the first in the world to experience the CrushPak innovation, when CrushPak was exclusively licensed to Fonterra, New Zealand’s most important dairy producer.
A market study by Fonterrra for its flag ship brand ‘Fresh ‘n Fruity’ revealed that 5-to-12 year-olds dislike “spooning’ the fruity bits out of their yoghurt as they’d rather have a smooth yoghurt experience without the obligation to use a spoon. The answer was CrushPak, designed by award-winning brand design agency Dow Design and by Fonterra brought to the market under the product name ‘Splatz’.

The CrushPak, an accordion-like pack enabling the contents to be squeezed into the mouth eliminating the need for a spoon, was exactly what the New Zealand youngsters wanted to have. For the more civilised consumers wanting to use a spoon in the traditional way, the door is not closed.

And now the CrushPak package is entering the US-market, as the system is licensed to Dannon through EverEdge IP for its Danimals yoghurt products.

The Crush Cups are produced in Dannon's plant using existing Arcil thermoform/fill/seal equipment. The cups continue to be thermoformed using polystyrene sheet.
The packs are deliberately not labelled on the sides so the consumer can see the bellows /accordion design and are put into a sleeve for storing at the shelves.

CrushPak promises material reductions of up to 35% due to container strengthening from the pleated sidewalls versus smooth-walled containers

90568

Bericap and BioGaia develop LifeTop

2009-06-09T10:27:00.000-07:00

Have the dispensing caps I recently described in my previous posts been products of small research or packaging companies, it is clear that the introduction of them have aroused the interest of the ‘big boys’ in the game. Here is number five: a dispensing cap for probiotics.
Recently Bericap, a global manufacturer of plastic closures with 20 factories in 18 countries and well-known Swedish biotechnology company BioGaia entered into a Strategic Alliance Agreement with the aim to promote probiotics for beverages packed in a plastic closure system under the name: Lifetop Cap.

BioGaia’s proprietary probiotic strains (such as Lactobacillus reuteri or Reuteri) and other ingredients (minerals, vitamins, flavours, colours, trace elements) are to be dispensed at time of drinking the beverage.
Probiotics are extremely delicate and difficult to keep alive. As a result, most probiotic products today are dairy-based because probiotics tend to stay alive longer in a dairy environment. The problem with these products is that the probiotics will die off over time and it is difficult to determine how many probiotics the consumer actually gets down at the time of consumption.

According to Bericap, they spent several years in search of the best compromise between an efficient system of protection of the ingredients against humidity and a simple and cost effective solution, that is easy to fill and to apply on the bottles without significant changes of the capping lines, and that is easy to understand and to use by consumers.

LifeTop Cap, initially developed and patented in one format by BioGaia, will be further developed by Bericap to cover all the needs of the beverage industry in term of sizes and functionalities and it will be industrialised by Bericap to be commercially available to Brand Owners.

The dispensing cap, made from LDPE, consists of a plastic screw closure to be used on standard neck finishes (30/25, 38 mm), sealed inside the plastic closure sits a blister, made from full barrier aluminium laminate, containing the ingredients up to 200 µl in liquid form or 200 mg in powder, offering an unique solution against humidity, supporting a long shelf life of the sensitive ingredients.
A flexible dome, protected by a hinged overcap, should be used to press on the blister, to tear off the lower part of the blister and to deliver the ingredients into the liquid in the bottle.

I just received the information from Bericap that Mass Probiotics will be one of its first major customers using LifeTop for its “phd” flavoured water.
phd - “probiotic health daily” is a line of probiotic beverages and beverage mixes made by Boston-based company Mass Probiotics.
Mass Probiotics is launching the first Ready to Drink or Ready to Go - phd probiotic line of 16 oz (474 ml) enhanced flavoured water in the predominantly dairy-based probiotic category. The bottles feature the innovative LifeTop push-button cap, as described above, which protects the live probiotics and then delivers them to the water at the time of consumption. Each flavour contains a total of 20 billion cfu of 6 different probiotic strains, or about 10 times the amount in most dairy-based probiotic products. It also contains 4g of probiotic fibre which helps to maximize the probiotics’ effectiveness.

90571

More Bottle Caps for Sensitive Vitamins

2009-06-06T07:13:00.000-07:00

Baby Boomers, their Gen Y kids and all following generations are convinced that a daily dose of a functional beverage, energy or vitamin drink can keep them youthful. However the potency and effectiveness of functional beverages rely on the way in which ingredients are delivered. Deterioration of vitamins, herbs and other healthful ingredients starts from the moment they hit water, in other words from the moment a packaging for a ready-to-drink energy drink is filled in the factory. Vitamin C, for example, loses 80% of its potency after only 30 days.

Various companies have development solutions for this problem. In my recent post “Innovative dispensing bottle caps for sensitive vitamins", I wrote about two ingenious solutions, the VIZcap and the Cedevita cap, that keep the vitamins dry and fresh until consumption of the drink.
I discovered two more bottle caps that serve this purpose.

Activate Drinks
Los Angeles-based Activate launched a line of functional beverages that features a custom-designed cap to keep vitamins and other healthful ingredients fresh until consumption.
The vitamin drink consists of a 16 oz PET bottle filled with water and capped by a custom-made dispensing closure that stores 3 gr of dry ingredient. The bottle, from MPI Packaging, is distributed by Zuckerman Honickman, while the name of the supplier of the dispensing cap is not unveiled.

When the consumer twists the upper cavity of the cap clockwise, an internal blade within the closure turns and pierces a plastic membrane separating the powdered formula from the water. By cutting the sealed membrane, the ingredients are released into the beverage, which is then ready for consumption.

The dispensing closure used by Activate looks very similar to the one used by Cedevita in Croatia and developed in cooperation with TeamPlast in Holland.

The Delo Vitamin Cap
This is a development from France. As a matter of fact it is not a vitamin drink, as the French company Delo is a bit smarter and only sells the dispensing cap with the vitamins, leaving it to the consumer to buy any kind of bottle of mineral water additionally, covering with this idea a much larger market. The vitamin dispensing cap is a screw cap that fits almost any water bottle, such as Evian, Volvic, Vittel, Contrex, Plancoet, Carola, Saint-Amand, Valvert, Saint-Georges, Mont Roucous, Rose de la Reine Montcalm ... Most of the bottles with spring water are compatible. However, Cristaline shortened the neck of its water bottle, which no longer allows the opening of the Delo cap-capsule.

With so many mineral and tap water bottlers in the market, Delo offers a perfect vitamin shot to enrich the water you just bought. Quasi-universal, the Delo cap-capsule screws on all bottles of plain water. You buy a vitamin, get any or your preferred brand of (mineral) water and make the mixture yourself.

90520

The Super Blooper of this Year - UPDATE

2009-06-04T12:41:00.000-07:00

The New "greener" Cigarette Packages

In a full-page advertisement inside Toronto Life magazine, du Maurier, a cigarette brand of Imperial Tobacco Canada, the wholly-owned indirect subsidiary of British American Tobacco plc.(BAT), introduced its new "greener" cigarette packages. Parent company Imperial Tobacco has replaced the aluminium foil with normal paper and uses external cardboard packaging that "meets standards supporting sustainable forest management,' according to the ad. Further stating, that "Small steps make the difference".

To justify their ‘green’ action, Imperial Tobacco Canada stated, that "our product is going to be in the waste or the dumpster, so what we try to do in terms of ... corporate social responsibility is do it in a good manner."

The words sound ridiculous coming from a tobacco company and referring to “corporate social responsibility”. I don’t deny the company the right to join the army of corporations introducing ‘greener’ packages as a marketing object, but in combination with the fatal consequences of smoking the product, the argumentation the company uses, i.e. the ‘greener’ packaging as a result of its corporate social responsibility, is hypocritical.
Or as, Moira Welsh writes in the Star: “First you'll feel green, and then you'll die..”

This is particularly true, as the same packaging holds the most horrific pictures as shown here as only one from a whole series of warning labels, including a picture of a cancer-riddled lung via an autopsy.

One blogger fulminated: “The green packaging will go good with your black lungs and yellow teeth. The idea is that environmentalists will feel better about killing themselves. I guess the way people who smoke "light" cigarettes do. The fact is, the package is biodegradable and so is your body.”

The green packages from du Maurier may help the company feel good about their contribution to the environment. But what about their contribution to killing people? I suppose it should have had much more impact, if they did some research and introduced together with the green packaging, the green cigarette. Impossible? I don’t think so.

People smoke and will continue to do so, whatever the consequences. The ‘corporate social responsibility’, however, can’t be ‘fattened up’ in reference to a greener packaging. Social responsibility requires a healthy product. When will the tobacco industry finally understand that some research might lead to a ‘greener’ product out of their so hypocritically used statement: ‘corporate social responsibility’? It might safe them a future similar as to the ‘old-time’ automakers in Detroit, which have been ignoring innovations for too long.

UPDATE: A Coffin-Shaped Pack of Cigarettes

In April 2009 for a “campaign to stop smoking”, Ukrainian designer Reynolds, designed a concept for a ’social responsible’ packaging of tobacco products, resulting in a coffin-shaped pack of cigarettes.

The idea is not so new and unique, but still quite impressive, however no tobacco company will use the design in reality, as it is meant to be a visual stimulus to quit smoking.

90557

Innovative Dispensing Bottle Caps for Sensitive Vitamins

2009-05-28T17:13:00.000-07:00

It is generally known, that most vitamins and other nutrients are very sensitive and loose their power the moment they get mixed with a liquid, particularly water. And even worse the longer they stay mixed, the less efficiently vitamins and nutrients work.

One of the features a properly functioning ‘vitamin injection’ cap requires is the unavoidable extra space to house the rising volume which occurs when carbon dioxide releases from the liquid, which might end up to some 15%.

Recently two developments came to fruit solving this problem.

In April the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued VIZ Enterprises LLC of Atlanta, Georgia, a patent covering the VIZcap dosing and dispensing bottle cap. The VIZcap offers manufacturers of functional and energy drinks, spirits and pharmaceutical products the ability to create more fresher and potent beverages.

The VIZcap stores liquid and powder nutrients in an oxygen and moisture-restricted chamber situated in the bottle cap, until the consumer releases the still potent ingredients into the content of the bottle.

The system is simple to operate. Around the bottle cap with its transparent dome-shaped moisture-free chamber, in which the fresh ingredients are stored, sits a tamper-evident tear-strip, which should be removed, after which the plunger (the dome-shaped cap) can be pushed downwards and the ingredients are released into the liquid.

Besides the typical characteristic of a fresher and more powerful drink, the VIZcap features the appealing advantage that the vitamins and nutrients are visible in the clear dome where they are housed.

Formation Design, one of the most well-known industrial design companies, developed the VIZcap not only as an aesthetically pleasing, user-intuitive and flexible dosing and dispensing cap, but also as a bottle cap that could seamlessly run at existing bottling lines.
The VIZcap can be moulded and manufactured to fit any bottle size and can contain both large and small powder quantities.

VIZdrink doesn’t manufacture the bottle cap itself, but licenses its VIZcap technology to third parties to get it on the worldwide beverage market.

Is the VIZcap a development out of the blue without a first customer to use it, the second is a development instigated by the Croatian food company Cedevita and executed by the Dutch injection moulder Teamplast.

Cedevita is in Croatia a well-known quality brand for healthy vitamin drinks. For her newest product, Cedevita Gol, the company selected the Dutch injection moulder Teamplast to develop a dispensing bottle cap. The result: with a simple, rotation of the dispensing cap 26 gr vitamin powder is dispensed into the liquid of the bottle, creating a fresh, healthy, on-the-go bubbling multi-vitamin drink.

Since the communist downturn in 1992, the Croatian food brand Cedevita developed from a faceless brand, selling its vitamin powder in simple 1 en 1.5 kilo bags, to a creative commercially operated quality food brand with a western look, packing its products in shrink-sleeved plastic jars and introducing the new ready-to-go vitamin drink in a PET-bottle with an cleverly designed powder dispensing cap.
Mixing the liquid and the vitamins at forehand is useless as vitamins in dissolved status have a shelf life of only one day.

Teamplast developed a system which transfers a rotating movement into a linear one. The movement is activated by a handle which is connected to an oval disc with at the bottom a sharp knife-like point pinching the seal foil when the handle is moved.

The dispensing cap features two pieces: the, with an aluminium foil sealed ‘vitamin chamber’, including the handle with the pinching knife and the bottle cap itself.

The system works as follows: A device which picks up the top of the handle when rotated is located inside the cap. Moving the handle anti-clockwise (opening the bottle) pushes the knife down.
The beauty of the system is that activating the vitamin drink the consumer has only to exercise the common doings of opening a bottle, namely to turn the cap anti-clockwise to operate the ‘vitamin-system’ and to get access to the vitamin drink.

These powder dispensing closures offer many new market possibilities for the energy and healthy drinks sector, even dispensing pharmaceuticals or the ingredients in drinks known as ‘beauty foods’, ‘nutracosmetics’ or ‘neutraceuticals’. They feature all one characteristic: a separate dry storage, which avoids the ingredients to deteriorate, and to loose their glamour and power, before they are mixed with the liquid.

90416

The Fruity Bottle for AriZona Infused Water

2009-05-26T10:48:00.000-07:00

Arizona Beverage Co., a brand of Ferolito Vultaggio & Sons, recently introduced Arizona Infused Water, a line of four lightly sweetened and flavoured waters. The waters are packaged in a proprietary 20-oz (600 ml) plastic bottle. A colourful lifelike illustration of fruit printed on a shrink sleeve covering the ball-shaped top of the bottle right under the bottle screw closure. Under the ball-shaped top the bottle is stretched, where a paper label is wrapped around the middle to give the illusion that the water drips through “the fruit stored in the ball”, before the water is consumed.

Constar International Inc., a producer of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic containers, designed and produced the imaginative package for the launch of Arizona's new Infused Water product.

Constar's challenge was to create a unique package that would help Arizona differentiate this new product in a market that is seeing a large number of new entrants. Due to the vacuum generated as a result of being hot filled, new and innovative vacuum absorption features had to be designed and developed. Arizona Beverages did not want to use the standard under-the-label vacuum panels common to most hot-filled beverages.

Using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) Constar manipulated the design to produce an innovative combination of functional elements including material distribution, horizontal ribs and three customized vacuum panels. The entire bottle geometry works to relieve the vacuum.

This design brings together a number of visual elements to create a distinctive look. The neck portion of the bottle is spherical and provides the right location for an eye-catching shrink label. The upper portion of the base section accepts a more traditional wrap-around label leaving the lower portion of the base for a unique use of "branding panels." These provide an easy grip feature for the consumer and reinforce the Arizona name, which is embossed in the centre of the vertically oriented panels.

90262

Beer in a CarboPouch

2009-05-23T16:00:00.000-07:00

The development of the CarboPouch, a stand-up pouch for low-carbonated drinks, opens the possibility for draft beer microbreweries to fill on-site clean, ready-to-go stand-up pouches, featuring a spout and a cap. Storage and shelf-life requires refrigeration, but the organoleptic film structure ensures no intrusion of flavour and is designed to handle the pouch ‘stretch’ after filling and carbonation expansion.

The stand-up pouch technologies most recently developed by PPi Technologies Global contain flexible stand-up pouches for wine, beer and spirits. Besides the interesting VinoPaQ, which is targeting the bag-in-box wine market as an alternative, is the eye-catching and much more interesting stand-up pouch for low-carbonated drinks, such as beer. Although stand-up pouches for drinks are quite common, the technology for flexible stand-up pouches for carbonated drinks is clearly a dimension higher.

The BeerPaQ, also known as CarboPouch, is developed targeting the small craft beer brewers, who, in several countries, are located in a restaurant or supermarket. But also the organisers of big sports or music events now have the possibility to fill clean, ready-to-drink, single portion, non-dangerous Single45 of Single25 stand-up pouches with beer. The CarboPouch can also be filled with low-carbonated water.

The film structure is designed to handle the pouch ‘stretch’ after carbonation, and the filling process doesn’t leave a ‘free headspace’ in the stand-up pouch after filling. The three-side sealed stand-up pouch fits perfectly in the hand and while neither sun light nor oxygen can interfere the beer has a shelf-life of 30 days in the refrigerator. The BeerPaQ has a 90% less CO2 footprint in comparison with an equivalent Bag-In-Box packaging.

The Single45 is a 16 oz. (454 ml) and the Single25 an 8 oz. (227 ml) stand-up pouch. Multi64 (1,8 litre) bulk pouches are available for outdoor activities. Also available is a 150ml size for children and is used for water; 200ml, 250ml, and 300ml sizes are also available.

The film structure used for the traditional standard stand-up pouch is fairly thick to give it a certain stability before opening, but almost none stability after opening. The CarboPouch gives a rigid stand-up pouch for low-carbonated drinks (with the exception of carbonated soft drinks), which also offers a stability after opening.
In contrast with traditional stand-up pouches, the CarboPouch stands upside-down, resting on its tamper-evident closure, which is located over the threaded drinking fitment.

81137

Gaïa and Infinite Glass

2009-05-19T17:36:00.000-07:00

In Greek mythology, Gaïa is a primordial goddess identified with "Mother Earth". She is the maternal ancestor of divine races, but laboured also many children as monsters.

photo: Eon and Tellus (Gaia) surrounded by four children, perhaps the personified seasons, mosaic of a Roman villa Sentinum early third century, Glyptothèque Munich (Inv. W504)

The French glass manufacturer Saint-Gobain Desjonqueres SA created Infinite Glass, the 1st 100% recycled glass, from which sprouted the Gaia range of bottles and jars, designed by the design agency Extrême Paris and dedicated to the perfume and cosmetics market segment.

Glass, endlessly recyclable, is known to be one of the most environmentally friendly materials. Although 100% recyclable, its composition is never 100% the result of recycling.
Cullet, a raw material used by glassmakers, coming from selected glass waste and reintroduced into the glassmaking process, can account for up to 95% of the raw materials used for glass manufacturing. On average, cullet makes up 53% of the raw materials used for packaging containers.
In the perfume industry, glass is usually composed of 30% of in-house cullet (recycling of the production loss) and 70% of raw materials (silica sand, limestone and soda ash).

Using a higher level of cullet in the glass production enables lower (virgin) raw material extractions, lower carbon dioxide emissions as each metric ton of cullet used in the furnaces results in a CO2-reduction emitted into the atmosphere of around 500 kg and lower energy consumption, since collected glass melts at a lower temperature than natural raw materials.

Glassmakers' performance is dictated by the requirements of excellence in terms of quality imposed by their customers, albeit restricted by the manufacturing process, glass have to be flawless. This does of course apply to recycled glass just as well as to new glass. The greater the amount of cullet used in glass manufacturing, the higher the risk of impurities will be.

To highlight the importance of the newly developed 100% recycled glass matching perfumery standards Saint Gobain launched Gaia, the first 100% environmentally friendly range of bottles and jars for the world of perfumes and cosmetics.

The designers at Extrême Paris, a design agency specialised in luxury and beauty products, were asked to base the designs on the idea of a continuous cycle, where nothing gets lost and everything is infinite. They have managed to convey the values of the project by creating a highly distinctive form. The design plays with material movements, the fluidity of waves and the balance of elements. The first curves of an eco-designed receptacle were born, inspired by creations from the goddess of nature.

In a press release Saint Gobain concludes: “Almost 18 months of research and development went into creating the Infinite Glass and its first incarnation: Gaïa. It constitutes a genuine call to beauty specialists to promote environmental responsibility,”

90356

A Creative Moderation of the Industrial Standard

2009-05-14T18:37:00.000-07:00

Packaging can’t make coffee in it self taste better, but the right packaging is critical to the success of any coffee product, not only in terms of fresh, convenient and attractive, but also in terms of communication, as the variety and number of coffee products on the shelves increase and the decision process of the consumer is restricted to a few seconds. The package may be the only form of communication for that coffee brand the consumer may ever see. The role of that package is, therefore, as critical as the product inside.

In the highly competitive ‘coffee’ world, the quality of the product is critical, but no one will purchase the product if the packaging is unappealing. Consumers respond best to attractive packaging which highlights the brand’s image as well as establishes its quality.

Rigid ‘bricks’ for vacuum packed ground coffee and soft bags for the roasted beans are the standard for coffee packaging and provide the necessary physical protection, oxygen and moisture barrier, and a reasonable level of packaging convenience.

Recent changes in packaging have evolved beyond typical designs such as valve packs, pillow packs, cans, freeze-dried or bulk bins. There is now a tendency to establish a brand image while competing on non-price factors, such as quality. Though quality is a huge aspect to attract consumers, the initial sensing of the product is through the packaging.

For Del Brujo coffee, Ovum Packaging Solutions, a design agency located in Medellin/Colombia specialized in packaging design, developed a creative moderation to the industrial standard.
Del Brujo coffee, a brand of Inversiones Velez Uribe Ltda, is a 100% organic Colombian coffee estate, selling exclusive roasted organic coffee directly from its plantations.
The series of new packages, Ovum designed, are for Del Brujo’s 250 gr (½ pound) Plantacion Ricaurte, Candela's Maragogype and Peaberry packs.

The new packaging design uses the industrial standard as point of departure, but breaks the paradigm of the brick form thanks to the application of curves and a tilt at the front. It features prominently printed graphics, a high printing quality, a die-cut shape and the use of pertinent materials. Creating mark differentiation in coffee products through typography, background colour and banner nuances, it's in harmony with the “gourmet” market segment it’s targeting.

The, 9.0 x 7.0 x 16.0 cm, 250 gr packs are made from 360 g/m² C1S (0.48 mm) cardboard - C/1S indicates "coated on one side" - and printed in 4 x 0 offset with a matte finish.

90453

Excellence for Her

2009-05-11T09:05:00.000-07:00

The new packaging for Narciso Rodriguez is a product from Axilone, a subsidiary of Ileos, a leading supplier of packaging to the fragrance, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical industry.

Usually I do not write about perfume packages as it is dominantly the design and not the technical or technological performance which create the innovation. I am not a designer and although I love beauty in all forms, it is very hard for me to find the lyrical and analytical words to describe a design. But this perfume packaging is different; it combines a beautiful design with some high tech innovations.
As a consequence this is a two-in-one post, in other words for the design I follow (translated) the description of my colleague-blogger, Rogerio Oliveira, an industrial designer in Curitiba/Brazil, who saw this packaging at the CosmoProf in Bologna, and reported about it on his blog “Um Dia, Uma Embalagem”. After his perfect description I add some words about some technical details. But first Rogerio Oliveira:

During my visit to the recent CosmoProf, the world’s most important international event in the beauty and cosmetics sector in Bologna, Italy, one of the packages that most caught my attention was the perfume “Essence for Her”, the brand of stylist Narciso Rodriguez. Some may even say that the packaging is not pretty, as the format is very organic and irregular, in contrast to the packages usually developed for the perfume market. But it is the irregularity of the form that has, in my opinion, its greatest qualities. Furthermore, these organic forms are the trademark of designer Ross Lovegrove, responsible for this packaging design. I do not know if it was intentional, but we can say that this package is an "amalgamated" version of the male packaging, with its absence of straight lines, contrasting with the almost mathematical and architectural precision of the version for men. The bottle, produced in glass by Saint-Gobain Desjonqueres SA in France, is completely organic and crystalline, showing a typical feminine elegance, purity of soul and sensuality as imagined by the designer. What really impresses in this package is the finishing inside the bottle, a mixture of metalising and paint, giving the bottle a surprisingly nice appearance. According to Saint-Gobain, unlike the male version that holds an inside bag that prevents the product to come in contact with the painting, the bottle of “Essence for Her” does not need this trick because they achieved to create a finish, which is fully compatible with the product. The visual effect caused by metalising the inside of the bottle, together with the metal cache and the bottle cap, is impressive, leaving it hard to not be noticed in the gondolas of the shops. Rogerio is very short about the bottle cap, so let me do that.
Is the bottle made of glass, the bottle cap is moulded using Surlyn PC 2000 creating a harmoniously entity with the bottle.

Surlyn is a commercial thermoplastic ionomer resin that was introduced by DuPont in the early 1960’s. Surlyn can be used in conventional extrusion/co-extrusion, blown film, cast film, and extrusion coating equipment designed for polyethylene resins.
Moulded goods made with Surlyn are virtually unbreakable, and offer unusual design freedom, combining toughness, clarity and chemical resistance. It is one of the materials most favoured by designers, for complicated and bold designs.

Thanks to a direct removal of this fully massive, isomorphic, and smooth piece from the mould, no mould parting line is visible, leaving the transparency of the cap perfect.

Credit: The large photo is made by Rogerio Oliveira.

90456

Evolution of Wine in Bag-in-Box

2009-04-30T19:17:00.000-07:00

Wine always had the areola of belonging to people with a sophisticated life style, a little snobbish maybe. Certainly snobbish, when you read the lyrical descriptions of the so-called wine connoisseurs, putting you (the simpleton) off because you have little interest in the either critical or lyrical, fancy-full, high-flying words for the wine which flavour you just happen to enjoy.

The last years the wine market changed and wine received a wide popularity as alternative to beer, but was still only marketed in bottles. No renowned 'chateau' would spend a minute of thought to change the bottle for a more popular, vulgar way of packaging. However, the market dictates. Australia and California, two of the outsiders of the European snobbish wine countries, started to market their wines in alternatives. First Tetra Paks and PET-bottles with a coating from Constar, and the not generally accepted bag-in-box. Astra in South Africa launched an alternative bag-with-spigot to the bag-in-box, the Versus, and PPI launched a one-portion wine bag.
It made wine more popular and appealed to the growing concern of people regarding the environment, but still was only used for popular table wines for barbecues and picnics.

The upscale wine brands needed an answer. And see three beautiful and distinguished designs entered recently the market. One from Romania, one from California and one from Washington (no not DC). Let's have a look how high-quality wines in alternative packages can still keep their 'distinguished chateau image'.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Romanian design bureau Grapefruit was awarded the Bronze Pentaward at the competition’s 2008 edition for the packaging design of Vinexport’s bag-in-box wine range. Vinexport, the fifth biggest wine producer in Romania, wanted to create a new brand that would combine the wine-specific tradition with packaging innovation.
At the creative level, the new products were allusively named “A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Royal Feteasca” and “The Merlot Code”, whereas the packaging was designed to support the brand’s quality level by rendering the image of an old book.
The concept modernizes the perceptions on bag-in-box wines, in competition with foreign brands from the more traditional wine-producing countries (France, Italy, and Spain).

The outside of the box is made from 250 gr/m2 duplex cardboard and typographically printed with polychrome and UV lacquer. Inside is a corrugated cardboard box for strength and of course the wine-bag with spigot. The spigot can be reached through a perforated area and pulled outside.

Saving the earth with a tube at a time
It is nothing out of the ordinary to see exclusive whisky’s presented in a cardboard tube as sales promotion, whereas the whisky still is and will be bottled in a glass bottle. Although also the first impression with this new packaging for the premium quality Cabernet wine of Four Wines, that impression, however, is wrong. The tube indeed is the second packaging, whereas the wine is stored in a plastic bag with spigot. In other words a luxurious bag-in-box or bag-in-tube packaging.

Four Wines offers his premium Cabernet, made from 92% Cabernet Sauvignon and 8% Petite Sirah by the renowned winemaker Barry Gnekow, in a stylish cylindrical box or tube, as upscale alternative to the common rectangular bag-in-box packaging or the traditional glass-with-cork bottles.

Skipping the relatively expensive traditional glass-and-cork packaging, enabled Four to create a much higher quality wine for its eco-friendly packaging and still being price-competitive. As a consequence, Four Wines is the first up-scale Cabernet Sauvignon produced in a non-traditional packaging. According to the company this wine is comparable with Cabernets double the price and is far superior to the quality of the wines usually packed in bag-in-boxes or similar packages.

The unique 3 ltr wine tube, in which the wine stays fresh to 4 weeks after opening, is not just an outstanding wine in a beautiful packaging. The attractive, innovative packaging has a 50% lower CO2-emission compared to traditional glass bottles.
According to the company, a standard glass wine bottle of 750 ml generates approximately 5,2 kg CO2-emission when transported from California to a shop in New York. The Four 3 ltr tube generates approximately half the emission per 750 ml.
Moreover the wine tube gives 85% less waste and is made from 100% recyclable material, while the labels are printed with a printer powered by wind energy.

Badger Mountain Organic Wines
Badger Mountain Winery wanted to produce Washington State's first certified organic wines, which led to the more eco-friendly bag-in-box (BIB) format to supplement the winery's traditional 750 ml glass bottles.

With this packaging Badger Mountains proves to the world that the once elitist moss-grown wine chateaux are transformed into a wine industry bubbling over with packaging innovations.
The box has the aura of high quality up-scale spirits, such as an exclusive French cognac and has nothing in common with the typical bag-in-box packages for table wines. A perfect and beautiful example of the evolution in bag-in-box packages.

The cartons for the Pure Red/ White 3 ltr bag-in-box, made by Pacific Southwest Container, are constructed from an E Flute - 012SBS top sheet (solid bleached sulphate, a virgin paperboard made from kraft pulp with a clay coating) - 33lb medium - 35lb kraft inside liner. A so called SFL Carton (Single Faced Laminate carton).

Pacific Southwest Container prints the flat sheets of SBS substrate using 3 UV inks and a UV gloss coating on a UV 40 KBA Rapida off-set lithography printing press, after which the printed top sheets are laminated to the medium (the wavy section) and the inside liner board on an Asitrade Laminator. A Bobst SP130-E die cuts the sheets and scores them into the flat shape of the wine carton.

Badger Mountain chose a collapsible inner bag with tap from Scholle Packaging. The film is a Scholle DuraShield High Barrier Film, a three-layer film that provides a high oxygen barrier with a transmission rate as low as .387cc/m2/day. The film is manufactured as a single-ply, which creates exceptional strength in the seams.
The fitment is the Scholle FlexTap, the first push-button automatic shut off tap, with which consumers can regulate the flow rate by the amount of pressure they use on the tap.

To fill the bag-in-boxes Badger Mountain uses a semi-automatic Scholle TruFill 900 Series filler.

Evolution or Revolution?
In 1990, two school districts in the state of California banned the book Little Red Riding Hood because one of its illustrations showed her carrying a bottle of wine in a basket.

Well, the modern day Little Red Riding Hood can now, with a clear conscience, visit her grandmother by carrying an old book, a carton tube or exclusive box in her basket and still has the satisfaction to serve her grandmother a premium glass of wine without the risk to be banned again.

Note: The trivia about Little Red Riding Hood I picked from a publication in Packaging Digest of 9 Aug. 2008.

90411 - 90429 - 90445
*

Noodles On-The-Go

2009-04-26T15:16:00.000-07:00

Tom Yum is a hot and spicy soup, as lunch very popular in Thailand. It has a sharp sour garlic flavour with a hint of basil, a bit slimy with a pleasant aftertaste of crustaceans. Tom Yum is now packaged in an on-the-go plastic bowl with lid.

Noodles are traditionally dry packed in a plastic bag or wrapper. They are a great as a in between snack or as a simple lunch on-the-go. Spices are usually packaged separately along with the wrapped dry noodles and to eat the noodles the consumer just has to add boiling water. Although it is an ideal
on-the-go snack, the consumer has always the problem, where he can get a (soup) bowl or another type of cup.

Fashion Food Co from Thailand perfected the presentation of its famous noodles under the brand name: "FF" by packing them in a high-quality plastic bowl with lid, creating a real on-the-go meal.
All Fashion Food Co’s products are certified Halal and are manufactured under the HACCP and Good Manufacturing Practice protocols.

A pack of the dried noodles (65 g), a bag with spices, a little bag with oil and a fork are packed together in the soup bowl with lid, made of heat resistant PP. The bowl has a diameter of 14.5 cm and a height of 7 cm (including the lid 10 cm). The bowl with lid is shrink wrapped with a half body shrink sleeve with full printing, including a list of ingredients and nutrition values, next to a beautiful image of the product ready to consume. The shrink sleeve covers a portion of the lid for tamper-evidence.

After opening the package the noodles, spices and oil, which are all separately packed and placed in the bowl only have to be stripped of their wrapper, after which boiling water can be added. Put the lid on top, wait 3 minutes and the Tom Yum is ready for consumption.
The fork is packed with it.

*
70930

Sustainable Products from the Amazon Rainforest

2009-04-22T15:58:00.000-07:00

Of course this is a post about an innovation in packaging. The innovation comes from the Amazônia region, the largest concentration of freshwater and biodiversity of this planet and the natural habitat of the animals represented in the series of sustainable packaged products we are discussing here.
As it is Earth Day, today, a little background information must be welcomed by everyone reading this post.

Earth Day Introduction to the Amazon Rainforest
In April this year government officials, business leaders and non-governmental organisations agreed, during a debate on "Managing the Amazon: A Global Responsibility?", hosted by the British BBC, on the need for rich countries and companies to recognise the people living in the Amazon jungle as "providers of environmental services" and "pay" them for contributing to the fight against climate change by not deforesting.

Pamela Cox, the World Bank's Vice-President for Latin America and the Caribbean stated, that the world has to acknowledge that the Amazon has an environmental value, and it should decide how much it is willing to pay for that. If the Amazon is the "lungs of the world," it should be given a value, she insisted.

However the problem is basically Brazilian. Brazil, one of the eight South American countries that share the Amazon jungle, is the world's fourth biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, with 48 percent of its gases coming from ‘illegally’ burning the rainforest by cattle-farmers to clear land for agriculture and pasture.

But, slowly, slowly something is changing. Under the "Bolsa Floresta" programme, families receive a monthly payment for not participating in deforestation, explains Virgilio Viana, director of the Sustainable Amazon Foundation which provides the Bolsa to 10,000 families who live in 35 protected areas in the Amazon jungle, which, he said, could be expanded and replicated in similar projects financed by the private sector.

With contributions from the private sector, the families also receive advice and financing for sustainable development projects, such as rubber-tapping, fishing and harvesting of Brazilian super-fruits, nuts and cashews.
"That is the way to reduce deforestation to zero. That is the way to make them guardians of the jungle," says Viana.

Well, let’s discuss one of these private projects. Already for years, Amazônia Natural, a brand of Nutriphitos Cosméticos Ltda of Pinhais in the federal state of Paraná, extracts in a sustainable way products from the Amazon Rainforest to create purely natural cosmetic products. Faithful readers of my blog will remember the company, as I wrote in January the post “Pure nature - The fragrance of the Amazon dancing in the wind” and here they are again with their sustainable cosmetics and amazing packaging design.

The Products and Packaging
The products are created with the highly concentrated predominant properties of Brazilian super-fruits, from which the essences are extracted. The super-fruits, Maracujá (passion fruit), Pitanga, Cupuaçu, Castanha-do-Pará, Buriti, Andiroba, Açaí, are all in one way or another rich in vitamins, minerals, carbon hydrates and anti-oxidants, they are nutritive, vitalizing, hydrating and healing. They are the power-houses of the modern energy drinks and revitalizing cosmetics.
(He, who likes to read more about the Amazon super-fruits and its sustainable exploitation, click here to go to the more detailed mirror of this post on my blog: “Brazil In Hot Pants”)

The new series of soap bars has 7 essences, exploiting the fruits typical of the Amazon region and mirroring the colour of each product, show the textures of the leaves of the various species in shape and graphic design.

Although derived from Amazon fruits, the contents of the jars and bottles are not for consumption. They are to hydrate the body. Amazônia Natural launched among others the Pitanga Moisturizing Body Gel, developed with moist maintaining substances that moisturise and leave the skin soft, with a dry, not oily touch. The feeling is refreshing. Pitanga has anti-radical properties.

Amazônia Natural's products are focussing on the middle class, a consumer segment which values products through design of their packaging. The products are sold throughout Brazil.

According to Ludger Tamaoki, the designer and creator of the packages, "the objective of the project is to draw attention of the consumer in displaying the products as a tribute to the Amazon Rainforest with images of nature and the environment, fundamental attributes of the brand."

The cardboard boxes, printed in offset in 4x0 colours on Vita Carta 300 grs folding paperboard, are mounted through slots, to reduce the impacts in printing and the use of glue. The packages are manufactured with recyclable materials and non-polluting substances such as acetate, present, for example, in glues.
The textures of the region (in this case wood), the rustic illustrations of each fruit, coupled with a clean and impressive graphic design are the main features of the visual program adopted for the product line of Amazônia Natural. Each packaging of this brand contains information about the Amazon Rainforest, its flora/fauna and even preservation tips.

To complete the packaging series, Ludger Tamaoki, partner of Brainbox Strategic Design, created also a series of gift bags, in the same style. The bags evoke the importance of the animals of the Amazon Rainforest. The paper bags show replicas of animal species and form a collection with seven models.

90431

Boxed Water

2009-04-18T13:56:00.000-07:00

Let’s face reality. Bottled water is the most outrageous marketing activity of the last years. In countries where water from the municipal tap is potable, it is an outcry to human decency to bottle and promote the sale of that same tap water.
I have no problems with the bottling of special waters originating from clear water springs and of which is said they have special characteristics, like Perrier, Evian and various others. I don’t have problems with enriched waters, which energizes life and supply extra vitamins. I have a problem with bottled municipal tap water hailed as a miraculous, healthy beverage option - a panacea for a fattening populace addicted to sugar-laden sodas, while in the meantime consumption of bottled water (in the United States alone) used anywhere from 32 million to 54 million barrels of oil equivalent in 2007, according to researchers at the Pacific Institute.

The bottled water market is increasingly commodified and what was once a healthy alternative has become, under constant assaults from environmentalists, politicians, federal regulators and price pressures, a challenge for water bottlers to improve their environmental profile.

The bottled water business is a huge industry in both the US and Canada.
Today, only about 20% of plastic water bottles are being recycled, which is alarming when you consider that in the US alone each year over 35 billion plastic bottles of water are sold.

Environmental criticisms over the impact of bottling mineral water is expected to lead to stagnant growth in the segment over the coming year, potentially forcing manufacturers to rethink their packaging with alternatives such as stand-up pouches, bag-in-box and carton solutions.

Recently three companies introduced water in Tetra Paks, stressing environmental features. They choose respectively for the more luxurious Tetra Prisma, the old-fashioned Tetra Gable-Top and finally the ordinary Tetra Brik.

Plant It Water
After launching carton packaging for mineral water products in 19 countries, packager Tetra Pak says it is now pushing a fully recyclable carton on to the US market through collaboration with producer Plant It Water.

According to Plant It Water, they have introduced the greenest concept in spring water with the launch of its new packaging made from over 60% renewable materials. Plant It Water is one of the first companies in the US to offer natural spring water in a recyclable carton, and with the shapely contours of the Tetra Prisma, the packaging is also quite attractive, making it a unique and recognizable branding element.

The water is sourced from one of Canada’s purest springs and is naturally rich in heart-healthy minerals like Calcium and Magnesium, states the company.

Tetra added that it still had to use a plastic like polyethylene in the carton to provide some barrier qualities, but is developing cartons that can be derived from wholly renewable products.

Boxed Water Is Better
Boxed Water Is Better is carbon-filtered, purified water from Minnesota and it tastes like...water - simple and refreshing. This is the latest trend in water packaging from the Michigan-based company Boxed Water is Better. Currently Boxed Water is Better is available at a number of retailers in the Grand Rapids, Michigan area.

The boxed water packaging is made from up to 90% renewable resources. It features a solid white carton with the graphic design done in black creating a sharp, highly effective package design that reads "Boxed Water is Better for the Earth."

The company produces milk carton style boxes for its water. The cartons are shipped unfilled to various retailing-points and filled on demand as needed. According to the company this is reducing transportation costs and environmental impact dramatically.
The packaging used looks like the ‘old-fashioned’ gable-top carton from either Tetra Pak or Elopak. If this is true, then somebody has to explain me, how you can transport the packs in flat position, as Tetra as well as Elopak can't be folded flat in a blank, after they are set-up.

I found a reference to Boxed Water is Better at the Sustainable is Good website, amazingly without a comment. Why amazingly? Well, Boxed Water is Better, smells like a scam, at least their sales argument: “The cartons are shipped unfilled and filled on demand as needed dramatically reducing transportation costs and environmental impact.” This argument is eye washing the consumer. Listen, the cartons are produced in a facility in Michigan and transported flat (?) to the filling points, the water is transported from Minnesota to Michigan filling/sales points. So, tell me, where is the “dramatic’ difference in transport costs, CO2 emissions and impact on environment? It smells like a monkey business. In my opinion they are just selling water for profit using dishonest arguments to soothe the environmentally critical consumer.

I asked the company to comment, but have not yet received an answer. After receiving an answer, I will update this post.

Aqua2Go
Aqua2Go quickly found that water in boxes had been around for many years, and that this was not a new concept. However, the fact remained that there was room, according to the company, for another boxed water product on the market.

The company argues that water boxes, if used wisely and responsibly by consumers, are useful for a variety of purposes such as emergency preparedness (due to 5 year shelf life), large gatherings, and other situations in which access to clean water and/or reusable containers is not an option.

Aqua2Go uses a traditional Tetra Brik of which approximately 75% is made from paper -- a renewable and renewed resource. Aqua2Go is compact, lightweight, and can easily be flattened after use.

Environmental Impact
As I wrote in my previous post: Tetra Paks are ‘green’ compared with the PET-bottles more widely used for bottling water. But both do not decompose or degrade in nature and mostly end-up on the landfill. Reasonable green, the discarded empty Tetra Paks can’t be put in the main cardboard recycling stream as they are made with plastic coated lamination and contain aluminium elements and other materials which prevent their disposal into the general recycling schemes. They require special recycling facilities.
As far as I know, there are none selectively collecting systems or Tetra recycling facilities operating in the US at this moment, only in Brazil, where Tetra Pak has a recycling plant for their packs.

Feeling Guilty?
Apparently water bottlers feel the breathing of the environmentally critical consumer down their necks, as they all try to soothe public opinion in promoting environmental initiatives.

Premium bottled water brands Fiji and Evian launched separate environmental initiatives that promise to minimize their products’ impact on the planet and increase patronage of environmental causes. Fiji pledged to invest in the Fijian rainforest, and Evian invested money toward helping locals manage their water resources in Argentina, Nepal and Thailand. Both brands have also tried to push the message that, no matter what environmental crusaders say, bottled water still has less of an environmental impact than any other beverage.

On a smaller scale the here mentioned boxed water companies pledge similar promises:

Plant It Water
Plant It Water initiates environmental efforts in the packaged water category by committing to plant one tree for every carton of water sold. Through an exclusive partnership with Trees for the Future, Plant It Water aims to help communities around the world with reforestation projects and restoring livelihoods compromised by natural disasters and over-mining of natural resources.

Boxed is Better
Monkey business or not, Boxed is Better is promising to give 20% of its profits back to the resources the product is composed of - water and trees. Not only does it simply make sense, but according to Boxed is Better they really enjoy supporting water and forestation organizations as it's part of the company's ethos and way of thinking to give back and participate.

Aqua2Go
Agua2Go wants to demonstrate to their customers that they are committed to "making a difference" in the world. The company has made a commitment to help people in need. The company hopes that by doing so, they will not only make a difference in the lives of those they help, but also inspire others to join in.

Well, at the final end, bottling water is just fine and dandy!

90337

Milk in a Pouch - Innovative and Sustainable

2009-04-14T14:22:00.000-07:00

The milk container market, one of the most important and traditional of all the food and beverage packaging segments is ripe for sustainable developments and design novelties. From the glass milk bottle to the existing plastic or cardboard containers over more than 60 years little changed in that market. Up till recently.

Last year UK’s Food and Farming Minister, Lord Rooker, called for the dairy industry to become more sustainable, targeting 50% reduction of plastics used in milk packaging as a key goal for 2020. (photo right courtesy Waitrose)

Although for the majority of industries sustainability is solely a moral issue at best, pressure of the environment conscious consumer in turning it around into an economic issue is evident. As a consequence marketing departments and designers have to see it as a creative challenge. The challenge is to come up with aesthetically attractive designs that are environmentally responsible, grant the basics of protecting and presenting the product, stimulate consumer behaviour to purchase and repurchase. Although not a consumer requirement, an innovative packaging might be a sales-booster.
Here starts the contradiction. Some companies have introduced highly disruptive designs creating a huge impact on the shelves in the supermarkets. Some have even managed to create revolutions in a specific category of packaging by using different structures or materials. However, consumers, hate change of the traditional and trusted day-to-day products, and there is always a degree of resistance to anything that affects the tradition. One of these “traditional” categories is the milk packaging.

The US consumer is much more conservative in regard to changes in packages of basic day-to-day products, in contrast to the UK consumer who is more open to changes in ‘traditional’ packaging as long as ‘greenness’ and sustainability is served, and convenience not frustrated.

In the UK and the USA in particular, the dairy industry is marketing its milk products in plastic milk bottles, mostly made from High Density Polyethylene (HDPE), causing a tremendous pressure on landfill and nature.

Widely used in the European and sparsely in the UK and US milk industry, the Tetra laminated cardboard packs are common in the juice sector. Although reasonable green, the discarded empty packs can’t be put in the main cardboard recycling stream as they are made with plastic coated lamination and contain aluminium elements and other materials which prevent their disposal into the general recycling schemes. They require special recycling facilities.
As far as I know, there are none Tetra recycling facilities in the UK (and the USA) at the moment, only in Brazil, where Tetra Pak has a recycling plant for their packs.

These two packages, the plastic bottle and the Tetra pack, are the two main pillars on which the distribution chain of milk is based.

Let’s have a look at three recently developed ‘green’ milk packages in the UK:

• Suffolk’s Marybelle dairy began in late 2008 to sell its milk in ASDA stores located in eastern England in the new GreenBottles (see photo above). The GreenBottle is made from cardboard pulp with a plastic inner bag. As a matter of fact you could call it a bag-in-box. A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for GreenBottle completed by PIRA found that the carbon footprint of GreenBottle was 48% lower than the HDPE milk bottle.
• Daylesford, an organic UK dairy producer managed to innovate both structure and materials, resulting in a sensational milk packaging, which I baptized bag-pack. Made from calcium carbonate, the biodegradable, bag-like plastic pack is cut into a striking jug shape. It is innovative, stylish and sustainable.
• Sainsbury’s debuted the milk bag with Jugit from Dairy Crest that comprises of a plastic pouch of milk used in conjunction with a specialized reusable jug. The jug’s two-piece lid features a hollow spike attachment that perforates the pouch when closed. The top of the attachment flips open to provide a handy, recloseable spout.

The GreenBottle - A Bag-in-Box
When you take a look at the bottle with its mat white appearance, it looks like a plastic milk container. However it is a double folded tray made from cardboard pulp, a system identical to the well-known pulp packages for eggs. The outer shell is made from recycled paper (90.7% waste paper) which can be recycled again, or if left it will just decompose within a matter of weeks. The plastic inner liner, which takes up less than 0.5% of the space of a plastic bottle if dumped in a landfill, prevents liquid from contaminating the paper case. The bag can be made from conventional Low Density Polypropylene or a Corn Starch alternative.
The GreenBottle consumes about a third of the energy required to make a plastic bottle and has a Carbon Footprint that is 48% lower than plastic.

To get this result some handling has to be done: First a loose inner bag is inserted into a paper spout. The bag is then folded and with the spout, placed into the outer shell. The bottle rim is glued, folded over and closed. Finally the bottle is filled, the spout is closed and sealed, and the label is applied.

Resistance of the consumer is probably minimal as the final result looks and handles like a plastic milk container. A clever idea, which has some similarities with the 360-Paper-Water-Bottle, I wrote about some time ago.

Bio-degradable bag-pack
Over twenty years ago, Daylesford began to turn their family land in the Cotswolds and Staffordshire over to sustainable, organic farming. It was the start of a passion: to grow crops naturally, and rear healthy animals. The rich organic milk from their herd of Friesians - a different taste entirely from more industrially produced milk - seemed to entreat Daylesford to expand in a creamery and other related activities.

Skilled artisan cooks work alongside organic gardeners; cheese-making is practised next door to willow basket-weaving, dry stone walling and other traditional, precious country crafts; people working together, sharing a vision.
From this traditional, if you like ‘old-fashioned’ environment, almost gone everywhere else in the world, comes an amazing development: The bio-degradable milk bag-pack.

As Daylesford does not reveal details, we have to make an assumption as the 'Daylesford' bag-pack (photo left) looks very similar to the recently by Sweden-based manufacturer Ecolean (photo under) unveiled new lightweight aseptic packaging system for liquid food products.

This package is made up from a flexible multi-layered polymer film, baptized Calymer, consisting of 60% polyethylene and polypropylene and 40% calcium carbonate.
According to the manufacturer, the package weighs just 14 grams, which is a 40-50% reduction on a conventional liquid food carton or bottle.
Although flexible material, the bag-pack stands up steadily, thanks to the flat-bottom design that does the job. The air-filled handle makes it easy to get a grip and the spout makes it easy to pour.

The Calymer material should not be confused with bio-degradable plastics on the market as they follow a different life-cycle. According to Ecolean’s site, a disposed Calymer package can either be recycled as a traditional plastic or “recovered as energy by incineration.” And here is the difference with Daylesford, as they claim that the bag-pack is bio-degradable.

The system requires a proprietary production line with filling machines and packing stations. The filling machine opens, fills and re-seals the packages in 2.4 seconds. Although their Ecolean packaging is available with the system, the Calymer material itself is not for sale separately.

Calcium carbonate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula CaCO3. It is a common substance found in rock, and is the main component of shells of marine organisms, and eggs..

The Jugit
In the past milk-in-a-bag has been introduced in several markets, among others in the Netherlands, with none or little success. Apparently the UK consumer is more open to this type of 'dressed-down' milk packaging and I must say the jug necessary to be used with this milk bag has undergone a tremendous innovation.

Developed by Dairy Crest in association with the Sainsbury’s supermarket chain, Jugit offers consumers a pouch-based format that uses substantially less packaging material than conventional plastic milk containers, allied to the convenience of an easy-to-pour, reusable jug.

The basic consumer resistance to adopting liquid pouches is the means of opening and pouring. Typical consumer fears about pouches include the suspicion that bags will burst, their lack of recloseability and concerns that they can only be opened using scissors. Design agency Vibrandt 1hq developed the Jugit to specifically overcome these factors.

The secret to Jugit’s success is an innovative two-part lid featuring a hollow spike attachment, which perforates the pouch as a natural consequence of assembly. After the pouch is dropped into the jug and the main body of the lid closed, trapping the top of the bag using secure clips, the spike is inserted to perforate the pouch. The top of the attachment then flips open to provide a handy, recloseable pouring spout.

The lid, spike and handle are injection moulded in white PP, while clear material is used for the two pint jug all manufactured by RPC Market Rasen. The pouches are manufactured by Glopak.

This new packaging system for milk for Dairy Crest, has been so successful that it is now been extended to over 200 Sainsbury’s and Waitrose stores across the UK.

80723 - 90315 - 90330

Functional products demand packaging innovation

2009-04-12T08:32:00.000-07:00

In her article “Consumer Trends for 2009” published in FoodProcessing, News and Trends Editor Diane Toops expects for 2009 premium ready meals that give a restaurant experience at home or beauty products that bring a spa-like feel to the bathroom.
Beyond this, manufacturers will launch products specifically designed to enhance people’s moods in unique ways.
From food and beauty to household cleaners, Chicago-based Mintel, expects to see a widening range of products that soothe, energize or simply lift the spirits.

Health and wellness is expected to continue its march into new product development as a rapidly growing segment in the food and beverage industry that is having an impact on both food content and packaging.
Studies from The Center for Culinary Development (CCD) and Packaged Facts conclude, that functional foods providing health and beauty benefits, including those known as ‘beauty foods’, ‘nutracosmetics’ or ‘neutraceuticals’, are experiencing an overwhelming growth, with Americans spending more than USD 27 billion on such products in 2007.

For many functional food and beverage products, maximum potency and effectiveness relies on the way in which the ingredients are delivered.

Beauty foods and packaging innovation
Obviously the new way to look beautiful is with an emerging generation of specially formulated foods and drinks. Though the trend is very much in its infancy, it has attracted some attention from heavy-hitters in the food industry, including Nestlé.

Nestlé launched a new functional drink product called ‘Glowelle’. The dietary supplement, or “beauty juice,” is high in antioxidant properties, vitamins and fruit extracts. Aimed at nourishing and hydrating the skin, Glowelle fights signs of aging from the inside out with skin-beautifying antioxidants.

The tapered, custom-made 8-oz (237 ml) glass bottle, from Vitro Packaging, is decorated with applied ceramic labels (ACL) in two colours.
The elegantly simple graphics design, created by KU Productions, is inviting to the brand's targeted female audience. One graphics detail helps do that on the label: A starburst element inside of the "O" of the vertical ‘glowelle’ logo makes it resemble a flower.

As designer Ken Ussenko explains: "I did not want it to come across as a perfume or have a look that was borderline clinical, I wanted it to be welcoming and fun for the everyday woman."

Nestlé chose a glass container to support the brand's notions of purity, quality, and natural sustainability. The caps, from Crown, are tamper-evidently sealed with a shrink band around the neck.

81252

A Probiotic Packaging

2009-04-10T15:52:00.000-07:00

Although the pictures shown with this post suggest that I want to discuss a special application for Tetra Pak, it is, however, a little packaging included in or added to the Tetra Paks which have our attention today.

The probiotic straw. As a matter of fact it is per definition a packaging as the straw, made and developed by Unistraw from Australia, holds probiotic bacteria, which are released when the consumer sips the liquid from the pack through the straw.

The Australian company sold the straws as a separate item, till the moment they signed, end of last year, a global agreement with Tetra Pak to add the probiotic straw to all Tetra Brik Aseptic individual portion pack drink cartons.

The patented ’on-pack’ probiotic straw allows the industry to supply probiotics separately to long life milk and other dairy products as well as fruit juices, without the need to keep the product refrigerated.

UniStraw’s unique system stores the probiotics as dry, stable UniBeads in the straw, where they are kept in position by filters located at both ends of the straw. The UniBeads dissolve in the liquid as it passes through the straw when sipping it. The probiotic straws have a shelf life of 12 months.

Till recently probiotic beverages such as smoothies and fruit juices could only be marketed under chilled conditions. With the application of dry probiotic formulas packed in straws which can be added to the original packaging, a new market concept opens up for the beverage and dairy producers, which are now able to offer probiotic drinks with a stable shelf life out of the refrigerating section.

In addition to the worldwide agreement with Tetra Pak UniStraw announced one month later to have signed a similar agreement with Danisco for the exclusive worldwide sales and marketing of its international patented concept for the HOWARU probiotics.

With the introduction of the Howura Probiotic straws Danisco, a leading worldwide supplier of cultures, offers one of the most extensive ranges of probiotic bacteria, to accommodate the consumer demand for intestinal health and improvement of the natural defences.

According to Euromonitor, the global market for probiotic dairies had a value of USD 10.2 billion in 2007. Asia and Europe are leading with, respectively 54% and 30%. At this moment with USD 310 million, North-America is currently a small, but fast growing market with a forecasted annual grow of 14% in the next three years.

Nestlé Nutrition, as far as I know, is the first in North America to add the probiotic straw to its children's nutritional beverages with Boost Kid Essentials.
The shelf-stable Tetra Prisma package pairs with a patented, probiotic-containing straw from the Swedish biotechnology company BioGaia. Previously used only for beverages in Spain and Japan, the straw holds 100 million L. Reuteri Protectis cells contained in an oil droplet that is released when the consumer drinks through the straw. Tasteless and colourless, the probiotic is said to help strengthen child's natural defences by supporting a healthy immune system.

The 8.25-oz (244 ml) Tetra Prisma is available in a six-pack format held in a paperboard sleeve. With reference to the targeted market segment the graphics on the packages are bright and eye-catching, using a spectrum of primary colours. A cartoon on the top of the six-pack sleeve shows a cutaway of the straw and the words, “Immunity Support from Probiotic Straw!”

For the Tetra Pak Aseptics the straw can be added automatically by using the Tetra Pak TSA/21 or TSA/22 straw applicator.

81205 - 90226

Natural In and Out - Fresh Handmade Cosmetics as Easter Egg

2009-04-08T08:03:00.000-07:00

Easter Eggs are supposed to be made from chocolate, although loved by everyone, chocolate isn’t always the best gift. But everyone loves to receive an Easter Egg, that ancient Pagan symbol of springtime.

Try an alternative to the standard chocolate Easter Eggs often packaged in nature unfriendly material. Try the Honey Toffee Scented Easter Egg of ethical handmade cosmetics company Lush. All Lush's Easter Eggs are vegetarian and four are vegan. Don’t eat them, They are to dip yourself into a nice 'fragrance bath’.

Each Bubble Bar and soap gift is housed in 500g of Ballistic "egg shell". The hollow eggs, available in two varieties are made from bath ballistic mix and contain two Lush products inside. When the inner products have been used, consumers can simply break off pieces of the outer shell and throw them into the bathtub for an indulgent fragrant soak. To protect the eggs Lush wraps them in biodegradable eco-plastic which can be put on the compost heap.

Or as Lush is stating: “Luxury without the guilt; just the way we like it best.”

The gift eggs are wrapped in Innovia Films’ transparent NatureFlex NE30 film, which has been converted into sheets by Innovation Packaging Solutions Ltd.

For the ethical handmade cosmetics company Lush, NatureFlex was an obvious solution for the packaging as the film begins life as a natural product - wood - and breaks down within a matter of weeks. It also offers advantages for packing and converting such as inherent dead fold and anti-static properties, high gloss and transparency, resistance to grease and oil, good barrier to gases and aromas and a wide heat-seal range.

NatureFlex films are cellulose based, derived from renewable wood-pulp and are certified to meet both the European EN13432 and American ASTM D6400 standards for compostable packaging. The wood-pulp is sourced from managed plantations operating under Good Forestry principals (FSC or equivalent). NatureFlex films typically have a renewable bio-based content of some 95% by weight of material.

90350

The ‘greenness’ of Easter Eggs

2009-04-07T13:32:00.000-07:00

Worldwide the period up to Easter is traditionally a ‘wasteful’ period in terms of packaging material. The sales in Easter Eggs and other (chocolate) products during the Easter period is enormous and consequently the consumption of fancy and mostly non-recyclable packaging materials. Easter time is one of the most important periods for the chocolate industry, it represents some 10% of their annual sales volume and for years, chocolate companies have used bigger and more flamboyant packages to excite children and their parents, to boost sales and profits.

In several countries, however, the Easter Eggs are stripped of their exorbitant packaging, as manufacturers cut down on packaging material or replace it by environmental friendly alternatives in their attempt to let Easter Eggs go green.

Reducing packaging creates challenges, as Easter Eggs are typically hollow and fragile. They need a form of protection during the distribution chain in order to ensure that the eggs arrive on the shelf in one piece.
Although in general Easter Eggs are presents, with the packaging representing an integral part of the gift presentation, the chocolate industry is under constant pressure, as consumer’s attention is increasingly turned to sustainability.

Let’s visit the UK and Brazil to see the difference in “waste-management”.

United Kingdom
In the UK the most remarkable changes in the Easter Egg packaging can be seen, since major Easter Egg manufacturers in the UK such as Cadbury, Kraft, Mars and Nestlé entered into a collective and voluntary covenant with WRAP ((Waste & Resources Action Programme’s), agreeing to make significant packaging reductions to their 2009 edition of Easter Eggs.
The move by the leading chocolate manufacturers is part of a sustainability drive across this industry segment, which uses 4,500 tons of packaging material for Easter Eggs every year. ....... continue reading

90310

Designing and developing packaging with i-Design

2009-04-06T08:44:00.000-07:00

Consumer product companies requiring innovative and branded designs, which use less and/or alternative and/or recycled material so packages are more sustainable, with an eye on the bottom line, minimizing prototyping and concept testing and that all as quickly and accurately as possible so that they can be the first in the market with the best packaging, might find the answer now by automating the modelling and analysis process, which provides innovative, high-performing, value-added packages in a fraction of the time.

I-Design is a package development software-solution developed by Constar, which automates the time-consuming modelling and analyzing needed to design and develop new packages. With a few clicks of the mouse i-Design users are able to develop custom-designed packages, arrange complex modifications of existing packages and even configure three-dimensional optimized pallet patterns. Projects traditionally consuming some 40 hours of intensive design time of an experienced engineer, can now be done within minutes.

The software system debuted at the Packaging Conference in Las Vegas, where Constar demonstrated a packaging project with i-Design. In less then 10 minutes, a 20-ounce (592 ml) six-panel hot-fill bottle was created, the height of the panel for the label altered, and the waist of the bottle improved resulting in a lighter bottle weight, to finish with converting the entire structure into Constar's horizontally banded Vertical Compensation Technology. Furthermore the packaging design was optimized for the pallet pattern, pre-forms were created based upon the specifications of the new bottle and ready-to-go CAD-drawings of the new improved bottle were printed. And that all within 10 minutes.

In stead of limiting the use for in-house projects only, i-Design is developed as a user-friendly device to operate inter-actively with all CAD and analyzing systems, using other servers. It can be approached via the World Wide Web, with Internet Explorer as interface, so that packaging designers, engineers and even technical sales men are able to design and develop a packaging in-the-field, right at the conference table with the customer.

Constar is a global producer and supplier of PET (polyethyleentereftalaat) plastic containers for the food and beverage industry.

90145

The Revival of the Tin Can - The Collectible as Marketing Tool

2009-03-31T16:01:00.000-07:00

A steel can or tin can, or just a tin, is a single-walled container moulded mostly by impact extrusion of tinplate or black plate (including tin-free steel) and designed for packaging products. Tin plate has been replaced by tin-free steel which is given a tin coating, usually as thin as a human hair, to prevent rusting. Protective (plastic) coatings applied to the inside of the cans ensure the integrity of the contents, allowing tins to hold a wide variety of products,

Except for the day-to-day food cans, the tin is nowadays a marketing tool, giving the product a luxury image.

The Tin’s History
With glass and wood, the tin made from steel is one of the oldest pillars of the packaging industry. The tin's history began in 1795 when Napoleon Bonaparte, who famously noted that an army "travels on its stomach", offered a prize of 12,000 francs to anyone who could invent a method of preserving food. Military prowess and colonial expansion required a method of keeping food unspoiled over distance and time.

A Parisian named Nicolas Appert, a jack of all trades, used his experience as a former candy maker, vintner, chef, brewer and pickle maker to perfect his technique. After experimenting for 15 years, Appert successfully preserved food by partially cooking it, sealing it in bottles with cork stoppers and immersing the bottles in boiling water. His theory of canning was all his own - Louis Pasteur's discoveries regarding bacteria were still a half-century away. But Appert assumed that, as with wine, exposure to air spoiled food. So food in an airtight container, with the air expelled through the boiling process, would stay fresh. It worked. He was awarded the prize in 1810 by the Emperor himself.

Appert's method was so simple and workable, that it quickly became widespread. In 1810, fellow Frenchman Pierre Durand (also known by his English name, Peter Durand) was granted a patent from King George III for the idea of preserving food. Durand intended to surpass Appert and fashion containers out of tinplate. Made of iron coated with tin to prevent rusting and corrosion, tinplate could be sealed and made airtight but was not breakable like glass.

The earliest tins were laboriously made by hand. Iron was pounded into sheets and dipped into molten tin. The resulting tinplate was then soaked in brine baths, creating a hot and odorous atmosphere. Using considerable skill and muscle, artisans cut the sheets into the required body parts and ends. The body pieces were bent around a mould or hammered into a die, while the seams and ends were soldered in place. Some tins were real artefacts with embossed and beautifully painted decorations.

This process allowed even the most skilled workers to only make about ten ordinary food cans per day, let alone the special editions of tins which required much more time and craftsmanship.
Eventually mechanization sped these processes.

In the past centuries, tins were used to preserve and store many products, including commodities such as tea, tobacco, coffee, spices, chocolate and snuff, because of their air tight seals that guaranteed freshness. Before the days of media publicity, advertisers relied on these tins to colourfully promote their products.

Nowadays, except for the traditional vegetables, fruits and fish products the tin can is replaced by cardboard, plastic and aluminium packages.

The Sculptured Metal Technology
As a counter-attack to this move from steel plate tins to plastic or aluminium containers, Silgan Containers Corp., the largest manufacturer of metal food cans in the United States, launched in 2008 it’s shaped can manufacturing capability under the brand name “Sculptured Metal Technology”. The new technology was driven by the desire to provide increased value proposition via a metal alternative.

With, according to an independent research, 68% of the buying decisions are made in the aisles, marketing communication has moved from advertising to the shelf, while, more and more, the design of the packaging determines whether or not the product ends up in the shopping cart.
Silgan’s innovation enlivened the sometimes dull appearance of the round steel can.

Shape communicates instantly, there is no reading required. Shape creates memorable and recognizable branding. It also offers upscale, sophisticated cues. Innovative, shapely designs which support brand positioning, coupled with a complimentary colour pallet help contemporize metal packaging and the products they contain.

And with this statement we are where we want to be: The special shaped tin container, which indeed became a very popular collectible in the past and of which we see a revival lately.

Collectibles
In today's market, the most collectible tins are those from the 1920s through the 1960s. These tins were produced in such large quantities that they are still easy to find, In today’s market we can see a revival of the tin as a collectible. In other words the well-shaped tin upgrades the desirability of the product and as a consequence of its popular position in the market for collectibles, companies in these days use tin packaging as a marketing tool, adding an extra value to the purchase.

Let’s have a look at some recently introduced tin containers from simple to beautiful collectibles.

SheerBliss Ice-cream
First: SheerBliss. In 2006 SheerBliss started to put its ultra premium ice-cream in pint-size galvanized steel tins. The beige decorative tin consists of a litho-printed body and lid, and provides one-year shelf life.
SheerBliss claims that the metal container not only looks great, but differentiates the product in the freezer aisles of the supermarkets, protects the ice-cream better than traditional paperboard containers by preventing crystallization and eliminating the need for preservatives. The tin is so durable that it often experiences an afterlife as pencil or candle holder.

Silver Joe’s Coffee
Although coffee has been packed in tin containers for a very long time, the coffee tin is extinct in these days. However in 2007 Silver Joe’s Coffee, which produces a premium 100% Arabica bean coffee uniquely geared toward the outdoor adventure market, linked with Airstream Motor Coaches for the introduction of a sleek, silvery can, envisioning an idealized travel trailer. The can itself, seen from above, as lyrically described by Bernard Abrams in his article for the Packaging Digest, seems like an exclamation point that lost its dot and went off its diet. Why Bernard claims it went off its diet, I never understood, but allah. According to its designer Cameron Clement, brand development director of C3 Brandworks it is a “streamlined teardrop”, a little bit strange statement as the idea was that the can should suggest a streamlined travel trailer.

But whatever the case, the tin is a definitive departure from the typical round metal coffee can of the past 100 years. The tin's iconic graphics include recessed spot labels and direct embossing of a steaming coffee cup. The satin-finish tinplate material from which the tin is made, won out over aluminium.

The silvery material is 25-ga (6,35 mu) tinplate steel. It is satin-finished and deeply embossed with the intertwined elements of the logotype. The Silver Joe’s component is printed in red, the coffee cup in a café latte colour and the idealized travel trailer shows a bright silver. Planet Canit, manufacturer of the tin, printed the tin via a four-colour lithography process plus one tan tone and an overall varnish post-printing. On the line, it feeds smoothly for automated filling with 11-oz (312 gr) of ground coffee. Every other can nestles neatly, head-to-toe, for efficient casing and projected retail display.

The spot labels from WS Packaging Group are colour-coded and made from 2.6-mil (0,066 mm) pressure-sensitive white polypropylene, flexo-graphically printed in one colour, with the coffee variety printed in reverse. When applied to the can, the labels are recessed to protect them from scuffing.

During the initial design phase, a prototype was tested among several focus groups and 99% of those tested stated they would buy the product at least once just to own the can.

Nestlé Easter Eggs
This year the industry decided to strip the Chocolate Easter Eggs from its excessive packaging material, using less and more recycled material to meet the ongoing consumer requirements regarding sustainability and ‘greenness’. In my next post I shall describe in detail about the ‘revolution’ in Easter Egg packaging and the consequences for the environment. I mention the Chocolate Easter Egg here, as the next beautiful packaging is the Nestlé Chocolate Easter Eggs. Exorbitant? No, the wraps are made from recyclable material and the tin is promoted as a collectible. And by the way, tin cans made from steel plate are fully recyclable and can be marked as a ‘light green’ packaging. For more information about the sustainability and recyclability of tin containers, see the end of this article.

But now first the Nestlé Chocolate Easter Eggs for the Brazilian market. 240 grams pure milk chocolate in 4 exclusive tins with decorations of historical Nestlé images. The tins are shaped in the traditional form of the ‘good old’ milk cans, farmers used for transporting their milk to the factory. I don’t suppose many of my readers do remember this age, but you can still find them as they turned into a collectible after the introduction of the milk machine and milk storage tanks.
Nestlé is one of those companies, which seldom or never reveal details about their packages. However I collected some.
The packaging, designed for Nestlé by FutureBrands, won a Silver PentAward in 2008. The tin is made from Expanded Steel by Rimet in Brazil and printed in 6 colour lithography with a varnish. The chocolate egg itself is wrapped in a metallised BOPP film, rotogravure printed in matt finish by Converplast.
This is a collector’s beauty, and you can imagine that many a consumer buys this Easter Egg with the tin and not only the wrapped egg, which can be bought also without the tin. It is clear that Nestlé appeals to the nostalgic image of the tin can as collector’s item.

Williamson's Elephants
Tea and coffee always have been big ‘tin-lovers’, unfortunately the packaging for tea and coffee changed over the years in bags and cardboard boxes. One original tea merchant doggedly maintains the tradition of tea in tins. Williamson Fine Teas, a Scottish leading tea producer since 1869, has a range of metal tea caddies containing the company’s best selling types of tea. The caddies are shaped in the form of decorated Indian elephants and are colour coded to reflect the type of tea inside. Each caddy comes in 2 sizes containing either 50g loose tea or 125g in 50 tea bags. The company states that the full range of caddies is available in luxury stores worldwide.

The funny thing with the Williamson’s tea caddies is that the company regularly adds new designs to their range of elephant themed Tea Caddies.
Last year the Santa Elephant, produced for the Christmas market, featured the Williamson elephant in a Santa suit, decorated with holly and bearing a sack of presents in his trunk. The tin contained 25 tea bags of a special Christmas blend of Williamson’s tea, in a foil laminate pouch.
The Scottish Elephant, marketed for Hogmanay (the Scottish word for de last day of the year) and the Scottish Homecoming event (a series of events, which started this year at January 25, organised to stimulate people from Scottish ancestry to visit Scotland) is in a richly decorated, predominantly purple design, and is wearing a kilt and playing the bagpipes. The Scottish Elephant caddy contains 25 special Scottish Blend teabags in a foil laminate pouch.

And just with regard to ‘greenness’, the company claims that all the tea is grown on Williamsons’ own Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance accredited Farms.

The beauty of Williamson’s elephant tins is, that it looks as if they are embossed or impact extruded. However the tins have just flat bended sides and it’s the painted decoration that gives the three-dimensional image.
A very efficient packaging, an eye-catcher on the shelves and a collectible in optima-forma.

The Financial Crises and the Banker’s Dozen
The last one is much more simple, but simple can still be beautiful and add extra attraction to the product. I have no details of this tin, as the company did not respond to my request, but with the financial crisis in full swing and many a banker and investor (speculator) belly up, I could not resist to end this article with the satirical “banker’s dozen”.

Financial Crunch is a delicious gourmet chocolate packaged in an elegant embossed green and gold octagonal tin filled with a “banker’s dozen” i.e. 11 pieces of coin shaped, milk chocolate crunch. Adding to the fun, each .5 oz. (142 gr) piece has a tax bite out of it!
Why 11 pieces? According to the company: Just as 13 is a baker’s dozen, Financial Crunch has coined 11 a banker’s dozen.

The financial crunch concept was created twenty years ago when college student, Nalen was lacking credit at home, school, and the bank. Realizing that she was, in fact, in a real “Financial Crunch”, Sweet Assets was born. With the help of two friends, Financial Crunch was sold all over the US, London, and Bermuda and made the “A” list of many connoisseurs of fine and funny chocolate. However, the three partners were recent college graduates and went on to establish other careers -- the company and concept began a 20-year hiatus.
In 2004, Nalen contacted and bought out her former partners. Financial Crunch is manufactured in Philadelphia.

I know there are many more collectable tins in the market. Take a look at the Panetones in Brazil, the chocolates in Belgium and Switzerland, the tins in which the rare and fine Scottish whiskies are presented. In terms of ‘greenness’ tins have the colour ‘light green’. In terms of marketing, presentation and collectibles there are unique.

The ‘Light-Green’ Colour of Tins
You as a sustainable conscious consumer likes to know of course whether you can buy the beautiful desirable tin container with no or little interest for the contents as you want to have it as a collectible. It is sóóó´beautiful, but is it green?
Let’s finish this article with a look at the sustainability and ‘greenness’ of tins.

The latest figures from APEAL (the Association of European Producers of Steel for Packaging) show that 69% of steel packaging is recycled in Europe. This represents over 2.5 million tons of food and drinks cans and other steel containers being recycled in 2007, saving 4.8 million tons of CO2. Top performers were Belgium and Germany where more than 90% of steel packaging was recycled. Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands follow closely behind, recycling over 80% of their steel containers.
According to the latest available data, this places recycling rates for steel above those of other packaging materials such as plastic, beverage cartons and glass (19.7%, 32% and 62% respectively).

Steel is an excellent performer in terms of recycling, being easily collected and effectively sorted through a variety of systems. And recycling is second nature for steel as recycled materials are an essential part of the steelmaking process. Steel is one of that few materials that have an infinite recycling loop - it can be recycled over and over again without any loss of its inherent properties. Hence, reusing steel for packaging and recycling it into new steel is a never ending process. This potential for unlimited recyclability gives steel a huge advantage in terms of sustainability.

By integrating recycled steel into the manufacturing process the industry achieves energy savings of 70% and lowers its output of CO2. Put simply, when it comes to steel for packaging production, the higher the recycling rate, the lower the CO2 emissions; as recycling goes up, so carbon emissions come down.

So without feeling guilty regarding the environment you can buy your collectible. Dream of your collection, sleep soundly and don’t have nightmares. But? But, what? What about the iron ore mines which destroy the rainforests, the coal mines which dump their waste into the rivers and the steel mills polluting the air?
Leave that to the legislation. That’s why I said: The tin can has a ‘light green’ colour!

**
For this article I extracted some text and images from the websites of the Can Manufacturers Institute and APEAL (the Association of European Producers of Steel for Packaging). Websites worth visiting, as they have a good story about the history, manufacturing and recyclability of the can and a series of beautiful nostalgic photographs of collectibles.

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Innovation is Key to Sustainable Packaging

2009-03-18T10:09:00.000-07:00

"Innovation can eliminate packaging waste and enable a future where all packaging is recycled or its value is recovered", said William F. Weber, vice president and general manager - DuPont Packaging & Industrial Polymers, during the keynote address at the Packaging Strategies CEO Summit.

“The packaging industry has long focused on reducing to the minimum necessary packaging. But this is not enough - we can do more through innovation.”

“Packaging provides value in preventing costly food waste. And, in the future, all packaging can provide added value through recycle and recovery,” Weber added. “By broadening our thinking about what recycling means from a narrow focus on physical recycling to a broad suite of solutions that includes capturing the energy in packaging through waste-to-energy or the nutrient value of food and packaging through composting, we can deliver sustainable value to our customers, to consumers and to the world. This must be our goal as an industry going forward.”

As an example, Weber outlined DuPont’s approach to sustainable growth. He described sustainable packaging, which is aligned with the company’s goals to create shareholder and societal value by reducing the environmental footprint of the value chains where it participates, as an important focus area for DuPont, a leading provider of high performance and innovative performance materials.

Weber called on the packaging industry to take three actions:
* Develop new technologies that will enable broad recycling in the future. Examples include waste-to-energy, better sorting technologies among others.
* Set standard measurement and reporting metrics that communicate the footprint for packaging products and the end-of-life recommended disposal method.
* Support the cap-and-trade approach as a way to establish clear, predictable market-based requirements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, providing a clear pathway to rapid transformational change to the low-carbon economy the industry seeks.

According to Weber, collaboration will be key to developing technologies and systems for end-of-life solutions that enable this vision, but in light of the economic environment, collaborative innovation is important now.

“We absolutely must drive waste from the packaging value chain. Initiatives to cut waste will yield improved sustainability as well as cost-effectiveness,” Weber said.

90278

Why?

2009-03-18T09:09:00.000-07:00

It is remarkable with the economy worldwide at its (probably) deepest point, that there is an avalanche in verbal positioning of multinationals and international organisations, to defend the status of the packaging industry, to pronounce their views for the future, to promote effective measurements for recycling and sustainability and in general to justify the overall use of packaging.

If you think the recession will temper consumer interest in sustainability, you think wrong. Packaging development programmes focussing on sustainability and degradability - in other words ‘green packages’ - will probably accelerate.

Why? Despite the economic recession, nearly 60 per cent of the consumers pay attention to the environmental friendliness of the food and drink packaging during their grocery shopping, claims a new survey released during the recent Anuga FoodTec in Cologne.

Why? Because, according to Tony Burns, associate director, sustainability, for Proctor & Gamble’s Global Package and Device Development (GPDD) group:
“About 80 percent of our consumers tell us that environmental sustainability is important. That [in] itself is reason for us to engage in this and to meet the needs of the consumers. They may not pay additional money right now for more sustainable packaging, but it’s important to them. Whatever benefits they are buying our brands for, we want to make sure that we package that in the most sustainable fashion possible.” and continues, “At times it does feel like packaging is becoming ‘the villain’, when in reality it is a small player in the overall environmental footprint of the product. However, viewed through the lens of our consumers, packaging is the first thing and also the last thing that they experience with our brands. Therefore if it is important to our consumers, then it is important to us.”

Why? Because when the US credit market collapsed, iconic institutions went belly up and corporations begged for handouts, something snapped in the public consciousness. Average people everywhere wanted someone or something to blame for the colossal mess, argues Mary Aichlmayr in her article “Can we live in a one-dimensional world?”
And continues to say (and I quote her in an edited version, cursive words are mine, to suit this blog):
“And, it changed everything.

Companies - the smart, perceptive ones, anyhow—started describing business objectives in three dimensions. Instead of focusing only on the financial bottom line—which consumers saw as the evil that got us into trouble—they used the term “triple bottom line.”

Turns out the phrase was coined back in 1994 by John Elkington, founder of London based business consultancy SustainAbility. He said there were three ways to measure a company’s progress: environmental impact, contribution to society and economic strength. Yes, that last one is profit - the original bottom line.

Clearly, one bottom line isn’t enough anymore. We now have three. Businesses have to think three dimensionally, linking disparate practices into one big survival strategy.

One-dimensional thinking is traditional, transactional and commodity focused. It’s the slap-and-ship mentality that says green is just a feel-good slogan. It’s appearance, not action. It’s talking, not doing.

Appearances only get you so far. The commitment has to be woven into the fabric of corporate strategy.

And, packaging plays a crucial role in a company’s long-term performance. Innovative and sustainable packaging design depends on simultaneously meeting the demands of three primary business dimensions: customers, employees and supply chain partners.

The buying public is sizing up your responsibility scorecard. The next generation of employees demands corporate accountability. Your supply chain partners just might force it on you”.
end quote Mary Aichlmayr

In our ongoing series of industry views which include (see previous posts) the visions of Dow Chemical in: “Dow Challenges Packaging Industry to Work Together Toward 100% Recyclability” and of IPPO in: “Packaging is the Answer to World Hunger”, we continue with the view of Dupont in the next post:
“Innovation is Key to Sustainable Packaging, DuPont Leader Tells Industry Experts”

Japanese Fashion: Recycled PET-bottles

Packaging is the Answer to World Hunger

2009-03-12T15:00:00.000-07:00

Read this position paper prepared jointly by the World Packaging Organisation and the International Packaging Press Organization.

Ever since World War II, global food production has increased faster than population growth, and food prices have remained relatively stable. Now, however, we are seeing a reversal of that trend-and we face a world food shortage. Populations are starving, and food prices have risen dramatically.

As a result, in many cases there is food but no money, or too much food in some places and too little food in other places.

The current food shortages have emerged quickly and with little warning. As always, several reasons are cited. The rising middle class in Asia and in other emerging markets with bigger purchasing power is one such reason, while another argument is the attractiveness and usage of food raw materials for other purposes, such as cattle feed, fuels, and materials. Some even say that the production of bioplastics (plastics made from renewable raw materials) is prejudicial to food production. Crop failures, climate change, protective tariffs, and poor logistics are other factors that are said to affect global food supplies. Traditionally, such problems have been addressed by increasing land availability for agricultural use (through deforestation), as well as plant breeding, artificial fertilisation, spraying, irrigation, etc., to increase yield per hectare. Genetically modified plants are also used, but the issue is controversial and many consumers are skeptical.

Now we face new and bigger challenges that will also require new solutions. Consumers want their food to be as natural as possible, minimising use of genetically modified plants, pesticides in production and limiting use of sugar and salt as a traditional means of preservation. Further de-forestation to create new farmland could negatively affect the environment and the climate.

In order to cope with food shortages, a sharp increase in food availability is required by 2020, but such an increase need not mean a real increase in production. Large quantities of food are now wasted because of poor logistics, storage, and packaging processes, as well as the lack of cold chain facilities. In some developing countries, it’s estimated that as much as 50% of all food production is lost because of the scarcity of processing and packaging technology, while in industrialised countries, food is carelessly handled and between 25% and 50% is discarded because it has passed the "best-before" date.

Moreover, up to 10% of all fruits and vegetables shipped in the EU, worth some 10 billion euros, are destroyed. Enormous resources go into producing and transporting these goods, which are lost partly because of lack of adequate packaging.

This is one area where the global packaging industry can make a positive contribution to sustainability and fighting world hunger. The general public and politicians often see packaging as an environmental threat rather than a tool for sustainability. For instance, the usage of a few grams of plastic for packaging is often considered much worse than a kilogram of destroyed tomatoes, although the latter, taking into account all processes in production and logistics, in most cases affects the environment much more than packaging material.

Although there are continuous calls for the use of less packaging, the solution to these problems is perhaps to use more. That means larger numbers of packaging for more uses, but of course combined with a continued packaging weight reduction through better technology and process development for each individual package.

Ensuring that food produced in developing countries is effectively packaged would result in much larger quantities of food reaching the people. By adding adequate packaging, logistics and storage, yet more food could be delivered to those who most need it. A high proportion of all drinks consumed in the world are unpacked. By packaging larger quantities of drinks, especially in developing countries, vital nutrients could reach more people, and diseases could be reduced through improved hygiene and food safety.

The global packaging industry has provided solutions for many of these problems.

As in any other industry, there are failures, but overall the packaging industry has worked successfully to optimise packaging solutions over past decades. In the current tough economic climate, with enormous pressure on margins, packaging buyers won’t pay one cent extra for something that isn’t required to protect and promote their products. While packaging cannot alone fully correct today’s food shortages, it is an essential part of a long-term incremental process that will have to employ a blend of technologies and processes. It’s true to say that the global packaging industry can contribute greatly to increased prosperity and sustainability in the world by ensuring that larger amounts of food reach more consumers, and that it is preserved in a way that results in better quality and smaller losses.

Bo Wallteg
President International Packaging Press Organization

Carl Olsmats
General Secretary World Packaging Organization
**
90304

The Dual-, Two-in-One-, Twin- or Kangaroo-packaging

2009-03-11T18:19:00.000-07:00

Whatever you want to call them, the Dual-, Two-in-One-, Twin- or Kangaroo-packaging is a packaging holding two separate containers with two different products, which together form one entity in packaging as well as in product. I am not talking about promotional packages in terms of “pay two, get three” or whatever the promotion, nor am I talking about some extra bonus packed with the original product.
No, in this post I like to highlight the innovative creations of Kangaroo-packages (I like this word as it gives an exact definition of the matter), where the one product belongs or depends on the other product and brought together to form one product to serve a mutual goal.

Without doubt packaging history shows early examples of the Dual-, Two-in-One-, Twin- or Kangaroo-packaging. I remember, in the sixties of the last century being the beginning of packaging development in Europe after World War II, the tin packaging of Struik Conserven (in these days Struik Foods Europe) for the first experiments with complete ready-to-eat meals. Struik already had a reputation for its innovations in product and packaging. The one-litre tin had a “double bottom”, as the rice or something similar (I am not sure about it anymore) could be reached by opening one side and the prepared sauce by opening the other side. Two compartments in one tin, requiring the customer to open both sides.
As young packaging engineer I thought it was a remarkable innovation. It was primitive, in today’s terms, but then with such a limited choice of material and technology available, it was tremendous. At that time Struik used the same argument, Conagra is using (see later in this post) today: Separately prepared and packed products maintain their integrity in flavour, colour and nutrition values.
It took me years before I discovered another real dual of kangaroo packaging and I always wondered why, particularly, the food industry did not explore this innovative solution for quality and flavour with all the technology advances in materials available at this moment.

My chronologic overview starts in 2006 without having the arrogance to be complete.

Struik Conserven dual-tin-packaging - Italy’s Pasta Barilla dual packaging - Jekyll & Hyde twin packaging - EcoLab’s kangaroo packaging - Zhen Bao Fang Liqueur’s big brother, little brother - Wonder Tablitz’s empty dual-bottle - Sambuca con mosca’s bottle-in-a-bottle - The kangaroo bucket of Avlon - bio2TONIC’s dual packaging - Dawn Simple Pleasures’ two-in-one bottle - Double Down’s twin bottle - The Conagra Two-in-One Pack

Continue reading and see in detail the packages designed with special ingenuity.

Dow Challenges Packaging Industry to Work Together Toward 100% Recyclability

2009-03-11T17:26:00.000-07:00

This is a paper I received from Dow Chemical and publish here unabridged as it is of importance for the future of packaging.

Plastic packaging is an important part of the solution in the big picture of sustainability, waste and the environment, according to The Dow Chemical Company. In a strong message first delivered to a recent gathering of packaging industry leaders, Dow is challenging packaging value chain members to work together toward 100 percent recyclable packaging solutions - and asking consumers to challenge their misconceived view of plastic packaging as "waste."

"Plastic packaging is viewed by many consumers as waste, or a problem, or in some cases as unnecessary," said Glenn Wright, commercial vice president for Dow's North American Basic Plastics business. "But if you dig a little deeper, a very different story unfolds, and you realize that plastic packaging can be very much a part of the solution to many challenges facing society. In reality, packaging should be viewed as a waste reducer. It contributes to the extended shelf life of many food products and reduces the amount of product lost to contamination. Through material science advances, companies like Dow are also creating opportunities for thinner and lighter-weight packaging, which can translate into tangible resource savings."

Raising the ante for the packaging industry as a whole, Wright added: "All the players in this industry need to work together to demonstrate the concept of life-cycle thinking when it comes to plastic packaging - from first uses to multiple re-use or traditional recycling, and eventually to the concept of recycle-to-energy - sometimes known as energy-from-waste. This last idea is exciting because it could potentially allow us to make two good uses of plastic packaging, first to save resources when used in a package and second as a source of energy that we could harness.

"As I think about these energy-producing possibilities, I ask myself, why do we mine coal for energy, yet bury plastic, even though plastic has nearly twice the energy value, according to the American Chemistry Council?" Wright observed. "Wouldn't it be great if we could help society view used packaging in its true light - a renewable energy resource, not waste?"

While the goal of 100 percent recycling, all the way to recycle-to-energy, is a bold consideration, Dow is calling on industry leaders to join it in challenging the status quo and find ways to initiate this industry-changing concept. For instance, with all rigid packaging materials being recyclable, could the recycling number on packaging be eliminated to reduce confusion and increase public participation in recycling? Could improved product marking for consumers also help them better understand the energy content (or second life value) of plastic packaging?

"The energy content of plastic packaging is significant," Wright said. "If we recycle the petroleum resources we've used back into energy, then we could actually get two uses out of the packaging in the end. Retailers and consumers could then experience these changes most noticeably in terms of energy- and purchase-related cost savings."

For example, thanks to the increased shelf life packaging provides, a grocery store can save 10 percent of energy costs associated with refrigeration *). These savings translate into decreased use of natural resources, which could be used to provide a family with electricity for more than 12 years**).

*), **) Sources (Equation Data): American Chemistry Council; U.S. Energy Information Administration

source: Dow Chemical
90321

Delicious Tea-Eggs - Xiang Cha Lu Dan

2009-02-20T13:41:00.000-08:00

Let’s have a look at some Asian packaging innovations. The next few articles will describe some interesting and creative packages from several South-East Asian countries. First the Tea-Eggs from PR China and Taiwan.

Never before were tea-eggs pre-packaged. Marbled Tea Eggs (cha ye dan) are one of the most popular and typical Chinese snacks, sold solely by street vendors and in night stalls in most Chinese communities throughout the world.
The XuanHui pre-packaged tea eggs, to be found in the supermarket refrigeration section, are shrink wrapped giving it a bulbous packaging. It looks like they make these in really long strips and the supermarket can cut to 3 packs, or 1 packs if they like. Although packing (boiled) eggs, individually, is not usual, the used film is not special and is only a laminate with an oxygen barrier.

Tea Eggs are simply hard-boiled eggs, which are boiled a second time in a salted tea extract. Tea Egg is a kind of alkaline food, boiled with medicinal spices. It not only stimulates the appetite, but is also good for the liver and breaks off alcohol.

Although so called, tea is not the dominant flavour. The scale of the hard-boiled eggs are slightly cracked with the convex side of a spoon and the eggs are then boiled in an aromatic spiced tea-based fluid with Chinese five-spice powder. This gives the peeled eggs a marbled pattern of white and brown, while the eggs received a delicate soy and anise taste. The process requires between one and three hours.

The industrial process, however, has violated the appearance of the product itself. Instead of their surface having a blurry cracked pattern, somewhat reminiscent of marble, the pre-packaged eggs are indifferent brown. Obviously the egg shells have been removed before the second boiling session, where as in the original home-made process the shells are only lightly cracked without peeling, to allow the eggs to absorb flavours during the second boiling. The lightly cracked shells grant the white to colour surfaces of the egg.

The term: Xiang Lu Cha Dan, as in the packaging means “tasty tea egg”, while the word may also refer to Xiang food from the Hunan district. Hunan Xiang dishes belong to one of the eight types of Chinese food. Sharp dishes and conserved ham are the characteristic components.

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Salt so ordinary a product, so beautifully packed

2009-02-18T07:00:00.000-08:00

BrandStorm, Inc. manages, imports, and sells different brands of gourmet food products. Since 2001, the company has become a major player in launching fancy food brands into the U.S. market.
They have an in-house marketing and design team who created this packaging. BrandStorm sourced the glass jar in the US, and had the labels printed in California.

Finely milled in France Himalania Pink Salt comes from the mountains of the Himalaya, at 10,000 feet high. It is a fossil marine salt which was formed more than 200 million years ago during the Secondary area. Since the beginning of time, salt has been the principal source of income for people living in those remote regions.
Once a year each spring the Himalayan people transport this salt to the Nepalese valleys for trade, as they have for centuries. Heavily burdened yaks carry the salt, travelling along narrow sloping paths, often carved in cliffs. Once they have arrived at their destination, the salt is traded for cereals, which is the staple of the diet for these Himalayan salt traders. It is easy to understand why salt has always been so precious for mankind.
BrandStorm has worked with these people for several years to bring this legendary salt to the West, where it is appreciated for its flavour, texture and colour.

Himalania Pink Salt has exceptional characteristics. It is completely pure. It also has strong nutritional and health enhancing properties. Finally, it possesses an incomparable taste. Its natural pink colour and its origin make this salt a very unique product.
Naturally rich in elements and minerals (calcium, magnesium, potassium, copper, and iron), it is the naturally rich element iron which creates the unique pink colour of this speckled salt.

Salt is an indispensable condiment, a crucial component for our body's balance and since long been a conservative. Either salt does not appear on a table as it is (sometimes in large quantities) added to the prepared food or it appears in a saltshaker and in a fashionable ambience in a salt mill to grind the course (often sea) salt at the table.

The new package design, a 4-oz (115 ml) glass jar which included three chunks of salt and a metal grater, is ideal for parties, and makes an attractive display on a dinner table because of its unique pink colour. It is extremely exclusive placing some rocks of pink salt on the dinner table with a grater, people have to use to condiment the food.
Grating salt is fun and a novel experience for even seasoned eaters, enhancing the flavour, presentation and interactivity of salads, soups, vegetable dishes, meats or fish.

“We developed a full line of Himalania pink salt, but this package design is specifically intended for home chefs and others who care about flavour, purity and quality, as well as presentation,” says BrandStorm CEO Thierry Ollivier. “With one taste, it’s easy to understand why salt has been so precious to mankind.”

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Heavy rainfall here in the Amazônia region frustrated

2009-02-08T16:39:00.000-08:00

Heavy rainfall here in the Amazônia region frustrated my communication devices, i.e. my radio-antenna for internet and my telephone line. Consequently for some weeks now I have not been able to post new articles, although some interesting things happened.
I know, I know, it is the rain season, but nevertheless there is much more and much more heavy and intense rainfall than in previous years. At this moment my internet is working again and I hope to post some articles in the next few days. They have been written during the last weeks and I shall use the date of writing and not the date of posting, to get them in the right order.
I hope my connection stays stable, so that I can upload the articles.
Sorry for the inconvenience and please come back soon.
Anton

Braille and Packaging

2009-01-25T13:39:00.000-08:00

Since January 1, 2006 a new EU directive (2004/27/CE No) requires all packages of pharmaceutical products to bear the Braille characters, in order to give the blind and partially sighted consumer the ability to read and understand the necessary consumer information.

The number of people that can be categorized as blind or partially sighted increases each year, mainly as a result of the higher life expectancy and aging of the population. Most of the visual disabilities manifest themselves at an older age, namely 88% after the age of 60 compared to 10% between 16 and 59 years and 2% below the age of 16 years. But unfortunately - less than 2% of the partially sighted and the blind can read Braille.

This year it is 200 years since the Frenchman Louis Braille (1809-1852) was born. When Louis was 3 years old, he became blind. He spent most of his life teaching the blind and stimulating the interest of people for his revolutionary braille. The braille alphabet is a so-called relief alphabet: the letters and other characters are made by punching dots in the paper, so that a small elevation occurs which can be ‘read’ by the fingertips. probably Braille took the idea of a relief alphabet from a French artillery officer, Charles Barbier, who developed "Ecriture Nocturne" (night writing) in response to Napoleon's demand for a code that soldiers could use to communicate silently and without light at night.

The year 2009 has been declared the Braille year
The EU directive requirements for the installation of Braille characters on labels and packaging is one of the challenges, which the pharmaceutical industry faces. Past experience has shown that it is often difficult or sometimes impossible to free sufficient room for the Braille characters on the label or packaging.
In order to help drug manufacturers to comply with the European legislation, several companies have developed their own unique solution.
Here successively Sleever Braille, CCL's BrailleMarker, the AccuBraille system of Bobst and Nordson's e.dot.
............ read the full article

What Are We Going To Do with Polystyrene and PET Trays

2009-01-10T17:31:00.000-08:00

More and more supermarkets and food service companies prohibit suppliers to use polystyrene and/or PET trays following their policy to show ‘green’ involvement to their customers. Wal-Mart, took the lead in 2006, in cooperation with the Oppenheimer Group of Vancouver, Canada, a supplier of fresh produce, by introducing the compostable packaging from EarthCycle Packaging Ltd, in the Wal-Mart Stores.

Palm Fibre trays for Wal-Mart's fresh produce
The packaging - used for organic kiwi fruit and tomatoes - is a moulded, food approved, palm fibre tray, wrapped in cellulose-based NatureFlex film from Innovia Films and labelled with a compostable, pressure sensitive paper label from Reynders, Belgium.

The tray is made from a renewable source: palm fibre from long-established palm oil plantations in West Malaysia. This agricultural biomass waste, which occurs when the oil from the palm fruit is pressed, was always burned or taken to a landfill.

The tray and film degrade within 90 days, meeting the ASTM D6400 standard. The tray is not printed, but is .......... continue reading with more about:
CycleEarth’s palm pulp packages for mushrooms
SilvaPak’s shaped wood pulp trays
RPET-trays for frozen food

Pure nature - The fragrance of the Amazon dancing in the wind

2009-01-09T16:12:00.000-08:00

The capillarity of the wooden sticks transmits the fragrance of the perfume from the Amazon region to the ambiance of the room.
15% of the world’s total of all known vegetal species (plants, trees) and 10% of all mammals are concentrated and trying to survive in the Amazon region.

This source of fresh air to the world, home to (besides man and animal) many super-fruits, medicinal plants and other useful species, will be destroyed soon. Between 2006 and 2007 11.224 km2 has been deforested - 20% less than in the period 2005-2006. Compare 2004 when one of the highest indices (27.379 km2)) in history had been registered. Hopeful? No! In the last 5 months of 2007 the devastating activities for prime wood, soy and cattle has been accelerated. Between Aug and Dec 2007 3.235 km2 has been cut down and satellite pictures show it could be twice as much.

It is no wonder that many individuals, research centre and companies are feverishly looking to the Amazon forest as a tremendous source for sustainable exploitation, which might stop the illegal activities that cause the destruction. Responsibility and sustainability are the keywords.

With the recent trends in healthy food, energy and fortification drinks, interest in Amazonian “superfruits” is growing. It’s little wonder that produce as açaí, coco, cupuaçu, buriti, acerola, pitanga, guaraná and medicinal plants as andiroba, are tagged with such superlatives as ”the next great super food”. I shall explain the names of the fruits and their significance in a later post regarding innovations in food. Just for now an example: Cupuaçu, described as a “pharmacy in a fruit”, is loaded with a variety of flavonoid polyphenols that act as antioxidants, including catechin and epicatechin (the same as in green tea) and quercetin, the polyphenol found in grapes and berries.

But it is not only the edible components which are extracted (in a sustainable way) from the Amazon rain forest. Since some years exquisite perfumes are created from this region, as well as the ingredients for a wide variety of shampoos and cosmetics.

The Indian smelling sticks in mind, Nutriphitos Cosméticos Ltda developed a similar product with the natural fragrance of the Amazon delta. The “Perfume para ambiente” (Perfume for the ambiance) releases its fragrance through the capillarity of the wooden sticks which stay in contact with the perfumed liquid. It lasts up to 5 months.

To market the new product, art director Rodrigo Teixeira of ZehDesign created a packaging holding the bottle with the olfactory liquid and functioning as a display. The wooden sticks are positioned at the side of the packaging fixed with a sisal rope, as a show-off to the costumer.

Not surprisingly this packaging won the Prêmio ABRE in Brazil.

Every single item of this product is natural and sustainable, highlighting the closeness to nature of this brand. The Vitacarta 300 g/m2 card board box is made from 100% recycled material and offset printed.

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© Weslley Murylo de Souza Steeman
amsteeman@yahoo.com.br

Ready-to-drink cocktails in single-shot stand-up pouches

2009-01-07T13:46:00.000-08:00

ShotPak comes in the ready-to-drink segment in four flavours with vodka created cocktails, in addition to four pure alcoholic beverages. All flavours are presented in single-serve stand-up pouches from eco-friendly material.

The package, called ShotPak contains a single shot of a tasty liquor in a plastic stand-up pouch. The company is targeting people with an active lifestyle and for on-the-go. Consumers find the eco-friendly packaging attractive, while the price/quality ratio is seen as attractive.
Since 2003 ShotPak, is known for its innovative cocktails and alcoholic drinks in, by the Beverage Pouch Group's patented flexible portable one-portion stand-up pouches.

With the successful launch of four premium vodka flavours and four types of premium spirits in January 2007, ShotPak immediately received national attention in the burgeoning USD 110 billion market for alcoholic drinks, in which spirits show an annual increase of 8.1%.
Beverage Pouch Group, founded in 1996 and belonging to PPI Technologies Global, is the main supplier of machinery for stand-up pouches.
BevShot is BPG's contract packing division, where a customer can bring his own recipe and use BevShot's machinery and process to fill his product into the patented single-shot stand-up pouches.

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© Weslley Murylo De Souza Steeman
e-mail: amsteeman@yahoo.com.br

The paper water bottle

2009-01-06T14:00:00.000-08:00

The paper/cardboard bottle, the so called, 360-Paper-Water-Bottle from Brand Image, has been developed in an attempt to reduce the waste of billions of plastic bottles.
Overall introduction of the 360 paper-water bottle to replace the mineral water bottles made from PET or other plastics, might reduce resolutely the plastic bottles which are discarded every day in the United States and end up at a landfill. The bottle is made from 100% renewable food safe resources, fully recyclable and can potentially be used for a number of liquid categories.
The extremely innovative new packaging of Brand Image, which was responsible for the whole project including the development of the concept, the branding, proto-typing, engineering and product design, is the first of its kind in the world and a real environmental friendly solution to the problem of plastic bottles.

Each day, Americans throw away 60 million plastic bottles. Only 14% is actually recycled - so that 86% end up at the landfill or as litter. Radical problems require radical solutions. Brand Image tried to answer the question: Can we design a container, which would emit durability, be easy to transport and give consumers an improved drinking experience?

The 360 Bottle Paper, versatile in its range of consumer applications and made from food safe and fully recyclable materials, reduces energy consumption during the entire life cycle of the product without violating the functionality.

The packaging uses sustainable sheet material made from bamboo and palm leaves, which are squeezed into 2 halves to encapsulate a micro-thin PLA film which guarantees the liquid/O2 barrier. The compressed material provides for the design, the graphic substrate and/or decorative surface and structural integrity. It is shipped in folded condition and "pops open” during filling through a conventional liquid opening in the bottom. The barrier material also functions as media for sealing the 2 halves together.
To pour the liquid the top is removed by snapping off. To re-close, the deleted section is opened to have a hygienic cap available, the remaining part can be hanged on the handle to prevent waste. It changes the whole experience of drinking water, from the way the bottle looks, feels and works until the end of its use.
The 360 bottle of paper is basically designed as a one-portion packaging, but the way it has been made a collection of several bottles can be arranged without having to use a separate 6-pack carrier. The use of pure natural cardboard with structural vertical breaks reduces the material consumption for palletising and transport.

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© Weslley Murylo De Souza Steeman
e-mail: amsteeman@yahoo.com.br

“Have we met before?”

2009-01-04T17:42:00.000-08:00

With the action: "Have we met before?" Pepsi tries to recuperate a large part of its 750 million aluminium cans (per month) after use by the consumer for recycling. The value of ad space, which Pepsi frees on its cans, is estimated at USD 40 million.

"Wonder why that can of Pepsi you're holding feels so familiar? It could be because it's been in your hand before."
With at least 40% of the average aluminium can made from recycled material, Pepsi is trying to tell the story of how used aluminium cans gain a new life through recycling. The "Have we met before?" campaign aims to promote the benefits of aluminium can recycling and encourage Pepsi consumers to make recycling a natural part of their daily routine.

National Recycling Coalition, show a monthly consumption of some 500 million Pepsi cans and 250 million Diet Pepsi cans on the U.S. market. That is a total of seven billion cans by the end of the year. The ad value for the space reserved on the cans is estimated to USD 35 million to $ 40 million.
Research has shown that people are more inclined to recycle when they know more about the benefits of recycling, particularly the energy savings. Consumers indicate that the information will help them to see the importance of recycling, particularly when offering an additional reason for securing a green environment.

The "Have we met before?" recycling themes this listed year on Pepsi and Diet Pepsi cans are:
• Recycling could save 95% of the energy used to make this can.
• On average, aluminium cans produced in the United States contain 40-50% recycled content.
• The average person has the opportunity to recycle 25,000 cans in a lifetime.
• Recycling a single aluminium can saves enough energy to power a TV for three hours.
• Recycle this can and save enough energy to power a 100-watt light bulb for four hours.

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© Weslley Murylo De Souza Steeman
e-mail: amsteeman@yahoo.com.br

A Can You Can Drink From

2008-12-27T20:24:00.000-08:00

It is a known problem that the top of beverage cans, in particular in disco, during sport events and outdoor activities, often are dirty by handling, cooling and storage. It is also a known fact that more and more consumers drink directly from a can declining the use of a cup or glass. A peel-off hygienic seal/cap atop aluminum beverage cans is therefore a must.

Advercan introduced in collaboration with 3M to AmeriCANtop a commercially feasible method of ensuring that beverage can tops remain clean, while also providing a marketing opportunity for distributors.
The newly developed pulp-based film will biodegrade over time as a result of combining certain additives into the extrusion process, allowing for an earth-friendly, sanitary seal on top of each can. In addition to the printable face that allows for marketing and promotion, the can tops also enable the “under the cap” type of promotions previously restricted to bottles.

The cover offers the possibility of printing in 4 colours, is water resistant and resists a wide range of temperatures, and mechanical obstructions during handling, distribution and storage.

But the most important aspect in addition to the extra advertising opportunities is the fact that it is a perfect fit for today's health conscious consumer and will consequently increase the popularity of the ‘covered-up’ beverage as well as the brand.

AdverCan claims to be the only one who offers a can cover film for advertising promotion. The AdverCan system is available under license agreement. AdverCan developed both the cover film and the equipment needed to place the cover on top of the can. The machine, which positions the can cover has a capacity of at least 5,000 cans per 8-hour and costs about USD 20,000. There is also 50 cans/minute and 200 cans/min machinery available, while the fastest which runs with 800 cans/minute cost USD 900,000.
Depending of the label design, printing technique and number of beverage cans to be covered the film will approximately cost USD 0,020 per can.

The license agreement covers a payment per applied AdverCan cover with the investment for the necessary machinery laid out by AdverCan.

The Clean-Cap can be applied using a IWKA conduction heat sealing machine.

This new top can label could be supplied with a RFID-tag, charity messaging, gaming, co-promotions, POS, impulse buying, coupons, scratch off, scent, taste, and retailer branding ... all whilst introducing a hygienic seal for beverage cans.

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© Weslley Murylo De Souza Steeman
e-mail: amsteeman@yahoo.com.br

Back to: "The Best Innovations in Packaging"

Water with a spiritual message - Water that purifies thoughts and deeds

2008-12-25T11:55:00.000-08:00

During this for so many "sanctified days" of the Christmas season it is justified to present a spiritual packaging.
Water with a spiritual message. Water comes in all forms, in expensive glass bottles and simple PET-bottles, in stand-up pouches and fancy packages. New is "Spiritual Water", just an ordinay (mineral) water, not dedicated or sanctified, but just to drink, and while drinking a prayer can be read.

In a market where bottled water is the number two on the list of beverage sales and is dominated by a few big global internationals, new Spiritual Brands wants to become the number one distributor of bottled water. Not because the water has a special price or is presented in a more attractive packaging, but solely based on the hundreds of millions of (potential) consumers who are believers, the target of the company that focuses on the Spiritual World with Spiritual Water.
The water with a spiritual message is normal water, no holy water and not dedicated only just drinking water, but the labels are inviting the consumer to read a prayer, while they refresh themselves.
Or as the company puts it: "Spiritual Water was born as bottled water with spirituality, positive thinking, prayers, God, and faith. The consumer chooses the bottle, which fits his needs and feelings, reads the prayer, drinks the water, believes in God - and himself - and the sky opens."

The water is bottled in PET bottles with beautiful artistic labels, showing multi-colour images of Biblical figures and symbols, with prayers in English and Spanish and inspiring words and messages. Spiritual Water is available in the market in 11 different versions - each with its own unique message and related illustration, (only the "freedom bottle" is, for some unknown reason, without an image). Every time that the consumer drinks, he enjoys the soothing, appropriate prayers to pick up additional inspiration.

Merry Christmas to all of you
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© Weslley Murylo De Souza Steeman
e-mail: amsteeman@yahoo.com.br

Back to: "The Best Innovations in Packaging"

Smoothie in a 'twisted' bottle

2008-12-06T14:33:00.000-08:00

According to Mintel, the US market, the birthplace of the smoothie showed, in the past 5 years, a growth of 80%. A smoothie (smoo) is a blended, chilled, sweet drink made from fresh fruit. In addition to the fresh fruit, many smoothies contain crushed ice, frozen fruit and frozen yogurt. They have a milkshake-like consistency that is thicker than slush drinks. Consumers are attracted to smoothies because they are seen as a healthier option to most sweets, snacks and on-the-go meals.
Now that the smoothie market is a proven success, companies are forced to bring the product to the next level - extreme differentiation. Similar to the coffee market, the "smoothie" companies have to develop innovative new flavours and additives (vitamins) to keep consumers interested.

Americans are accustomed to drink their smoothies in 'juice bars'. Market leader Jamba Juice, well-known blender of fruit with other healthy natural ingredients, opened his 700th juice bar in Portland, Oregon last December. Nevertheless more and more smoothie brands appear also on the shelves in supermarkets.
In December last year, Nestlé signed a global licensing agreement for the Jamba Juice ready-to-drink smoothies.

Nestlé chose Product Ventures, a well-known branding agency, for the development of a new bottle, which should accentuate Jamba's characteristics, such as health, refreshing and enjoyable.
Product Ventures used the essence of Jamba by creating a sculptured design, which imagines ‘freshly squeezed fruit’. The result is a twisted bottle, which displays the 'fresh squeezed' and fits pleasantly in the hand.

Being a Nestlé product, no details about material composition and print techniques of the shrink-sleeve are divulged.
A few days ago I received a new photograph from Nestlé. The bottle without a full-body shrink sleeve shows the twisting contours perfectly.
The bottle won the Silver PentAward 2008
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© Weslley Murylo The Souza Steeman

Water in an octagonal Bag-in-Box

2008-12-03T14:00:00.000-08:00

Two major natural elements, water and wood, play a central role in the "Lindoya Vida" (Life in the Box) 22-ltr octagonal bag-in-box with mineral water from the Mineração Mantovani fountains. The BIB-pack consists of a corrugated cardboard case with two-die-cut handles and a laminated bag with dispensing tap.

The corrugated case is manufactured by Klabin - Brazil's largest producer and recycler of paperboard. The octagonal shape of the box was not only chosen from an aesthetic point of view, but also because it gives a perfect palletising pattern.

The two-layer bag, provided by DuPont Liquid Packaging Systems/Liqui-Box, has a 3.8-mil (96.5 mu) outside layer of a bi-axially oriented nylon composition and an inner layer of 2.5-mil (63.5 mu) polyolefin. DuPont Liquid Packaging Systems delivers the ready-made bags, both in 3 and 5-gal (11.35 and 18.93 ltr) sizes equipped with a dispensing tap. The bags are filled on the Liqui-Box model 1000 CIT-W filling machine with a capacity of four 5-gal bags/min.

Klabin wanted a sustainable packaging that could guarantee the quality of the water from the time of filling up till the moment of consumption. The definition of sustainable meant that it should be economically viable, environmentally and socially correct.
The economic viability refers to the price per litre of the new packaging, with a market price that should be between those of Brazil’s two most popular containers, a 20-ltr bottle and a 1.5-ltr PET bottle.
The definition ecological meant a 100% recyclable, biodegradable corrugated cardboard box made from renewable raw material resources harvested from the re-planted forests. The result is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, the international body that governs proper management of forests and their production chains. The plastic bag and the dispensing valve are also recyclable.
And finally, the condition: social justice. The packages are guaranteed fraud-resistant, while the companies involved in the manufacturing collaborate actively in a positive development of the communities in which they are located.
In addition to environmental benefits, the corrugated cardboard box prevents light from entering, as well as it insulates the water from heat, with which the sensation of "fresh water" is much longer experienced than with clear bottles.
The strong corrugated cardboard box, printed in three colours on a white kraft liner, is sealed with hot-melt. The tamper-evident valve allows the bag to be filled without any manual contact with the water.
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Weslley Murylo The Souza Steeman

Beer that “fits the hand” - The design process of a special beer bottle

2008-11-30T10:06:00.000-08:00

The young Brazilian consumers are open to new and innovative packages and products. The latest innovation comes with the launch of Summer Draft beer.

At the time the summer period which accounts for about 40% of total sales in this segment, starts (southern hemisphere) Cervejarias Kaiser introduces Summer Draft beer in a special long neck. The draft beer is a Pilsner, light and refreshing, with low fermentation, a slightly bitter flavour, a bright colour with 4.7% alcohol content. The beer is double-filtered and made from special hops that are more resistant to UV radiation. That is the reason that Kaiser Summer Draft could be introduced into the market in a clear transparent 355 ml glass bottle.
The result: a beer, presented in a very special designed bottle, with a mild and medium sweet taste that typically must be savoured ice cold.

In general the blogosphere classifies Summer Draft in terms of taste and quality from reasonable to good, albeit one blogger writes: “My German uncle once said when tasting Summer Draft: In Germany we wash our cars with this!”
All right Summer Draft. Summer Draft is brewed by Femsa. FEMSA (acronym for Fomento Económico Mexicano SA) is a Mexican beverage company. Since January 2006 when it acquired Cervejarias Kaiser, the group operates in Brazil under the name Femsa Cerveja Brasil. Kaiser was purchased from the Canadian multinational Molson, which owns still 15% of the shares. Heineken controls 17% in this company.
The Brazilian beer portfolio includes brands such as Kaiser, Sol, Bavaria, Xingú, Santa Cervo, Summer Draft and Heineken. The group consists of thirty bottling plants, 235 distribution centres, 64 soft drink brands, 15 beer brands and employs some 56 thousand people in the nine countries where it operates, including Brazil.
FEMSA, the world's second largest Coca-Cola bottler, operates in Brazil the world's largest (in terms of production capacity) Coca-Cola bottling plant in the city of Jundiaí in the federal state of São Paulo.

The long-neck Summer Draft bottle has a height of 227 mm and a diameter of 62 mm and weighs, filled with 355 ml, 602 grams and is made of blow moulded flint glass, which has in addition to about 62% quartz a high content of lead oxide (about 24%), which gives the material a relatively high density of 3.5 to 4.8 gr/cm3.

The product is truly innovative; the design of the bottle with its anatomical contours gives consumers the feeling of a "handshake" as it fits perfectly in the hand, with recesses for the fingers and thumb. Exactly the way you hold a bottle when bringing it to your mouth.

The blow moulded flint glass bottle and the two self-adhesive transparent labels, both developed by Dil Brands, show the golden liquid in combination with the vividness of the silver and the graphics in black. The ‘S’-curve on a 'clean' forefront and the diagonal lines represent the new visual identity of Summer Draft.

DIL Brands specializes in the packaging design and branding. With 42 years experience in the Brazilian market, the company has offices in São Paulo, Buenos Aires and Santiago de Chile. It also is represented in New York, Amsterdam, London and Barcelona, as a result of partnerships with Bridge Design and Coleman Schmidlin. DIL Brands designed products for companies like Unilever, Nestlé and Parmalat.

The challenge for Dil Brands in this case was to create a new visual 'look' for Summer Draft (design of the bottle and the labels), with the aim to rejuvenate the brand. The package had to have a modern look and differentiate on the store shelves; it had to stand at the centre of attention.

The ultimate design is a modern asymmetrical shape which allows for easy grip in all conditions. DIL chooses an iconic image for the label. The reverse printed label on the back of the bottle gives an impression of a three-dimensional effect in combination with the front label. The combination of the label and the bottle creates a truly innovative and modern look for Summer Draft.

The accompanying photographs show the development process from the old Summer beer bottle to the modern Summer Draft bottle.
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© Weslley Murylo De Souza Steeman

Securing Exclusive Wines

2008-11-16T15:19:00.000-08:00

The worldwide system that tracks the origin of a good glass of wine from the château to the consumers, is based on the offset printed seal (bottle closure) made from aluminium foil in which the "taggant" is incorporated. The taggant is a chemical registration, emitting a specific unique electro-optically signal linked to a particular brand (in this case eProvenance).

The system, designed by eProvence, comprises three components: a semi-active RFID tag placed in the shipping box to record temperatures throughout the distribution chain, a passive RFID tag with a unique code in the bottom of the bottle for tracking, stock management and discouraging pilferage; and a proprietary, and a tamper-proof neck seal with a covert code (deveoped by InkSure Technologies Inc) applied at the base of the capsule to authenticate the wine inside the bottle and thwart counterfeiters.

InkSure Technologies Inc. is a leading supplier of covert machine-readable security solutions (CMRT) for the detection of counterfeiting, fraud and abuse. Together with eProvenance LLC, this system is introduced in the market for exclusive wines. InkSure adapted the security ink to this market and developed handheld readers, which form an integral part of the eProvenance system to address the growing counterfeiting problems within the fine wine market. The printing is done by George Schmitt & Co.

In addition to authenticating the wine, the system monitors and records the storage temperature, while the origin of each bottle in stored a secure online database. With the eProvenance system, the bottle is secured, the content is secured and the conduct of the temperature maintained during the distribution chain monitored.

The first application will take place in nine vineyards in the Bordeaux region, including Chateau Bauduc, Chateau Lynch Bages, Chateau Margaux, Chateau Palmer.

The applied patent involves the integral system, with a fast, encrypted, online database of the unique bottle, the shipping box, and the identification numbers in the capsule, coupled with the authentic data of the chateau, the shipment data and temperature development, which together create the electronic originality data for each bottle.
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© Weslley Murylo de Souza Steeman

The EnviroClear Refillable Water Bottles

2008-11-16T13:52:00.000-08:00

According to the 2008 Global Bottled Water report from Zenith International Ltd, the worldwide sales of bottled water will rise from 206 billion litres in 2007 to 272 billion in 2012 (32%). The per capita consumption amounted to 30.8 litres in 2007, an increase of 1.4 litre compared to 2006. Bulk packages of more than 10 litres accounted for 36% of the total consumption.

A recent study of increased toxic antimony (also known as stibium, chemical symbol Sb, a silver grey metalloid) concentrations in 132 brands of bottled water from 28 countries, conducted by Dr. William Shotyk, director of the Institute of Environmental Geochemistry at the University of Heidelberg, shows that in PET bottles, the level of antimony increases the longer the water stays in the bottle. In his study Dr. Shotyk also included a number of PP bottles produced by the Container Corporation of Canada (CCC) and came to the conclusion that the water stored in the PP bottles showed no increase in antimony concentrations.

With this result in hand, Container Corporation of Canada (CCC), a world leader in the field of polypropylene (PP) injection stretch blow moulding technology, introduced the EnviroClear refillable water bottle.
The EnviroClear refillable water bottles are the first dishwasher safe, refillable, reusable, cost-effective bottles designed to reduce the number of PET water bottles, which, most likely, end up in landfill. The EnviroClear refillable plastic bottle is an example of "recycling", since it can be decontaminated or sanitized in the dishwasher. Reuse of existing PET bottles for water seems to be a feasible alternative, however, PET bottles are often distorted when they are exposed to the high temperatures of a dishwasher.

The EnviroClear refillable plastic bottle is perfectly safe in use for baby food and eliminates the risk of Bisphenol-A (BPA), which can lead to hormonal and neurological changes in small bodies and is present in polycarbonate.

CCC’s EnviroClear refillable water bottles are available in 250 ml and 500 ml sizes. The 250 ml bottle has a quadrilateral shape, can lie flat without rolling and is ideal for school lunch boxes and briefcases. The larger 500 ml bottle is perfect for the gym, office or car.
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© Weslley Murylo De Souza Steeman

Water Bottle for Children Doubles as Toy

2008-11-15T16:45:00.000-08:00

The, by top designer Yves Behar of “fuseproject” in San Francisco, designed symmetrical Y-shaped single-serving bottles for Y-Water, Los Angeles, should attract the attention of children, since they, when empty, can serve as a toy, brick or as part of a game.
The small size of the 9 oz (267 ml) bottle, accentuates the health aspect (portion control and calorie use) of this new organic, low-calorie drink for children.

Although the package will certainly attract the attention of adults, the unique design is created with the children's market in mind. The bold, geometric shape - inspired by an upward-downward, three-dimensional Y - was enabled by the unique characteristics of blow moulding of the Eastar EB062 co-polyester resin from Eastman Chemical. Offering water-like clarity, this material was able to provide the wall-thickness necessary to withstand Y Water’s 185° F (85° C) hot-fill process and the durability to withstand rough handling and reuse by children.
The effect on the store shelves is further enhanced by the biodegradable hang tags, which are placed around the neck of the bottle. The labels contain cartoon-like drawings and humorous texts such as “Bone Water … because you don’t want your skeleton walking out on you.”
The drinking opening is closed with an aluminium seal, while a cap completes the package.
Y Water currently comes in four preservative-free, artificial colouring and sweetener-free formulations: Bone Water is enriched with calcium, fluoride and vitamins A, C and D; Brain Water has zinc, molybdenum and vitamins B6, B12 and C; Muscle Water features magnesium, potassium and selenium as well as vitamin A and C; and Immune Water has antioxidants and vitamins A, C and E.

The playfulness of Y Water is further conveyed with its capability to be reused as a toy or building blocks. Natural rubber connectors called “Y Knots” allow end-users to connect different packages into molecule-like formations. The reusability of the Y Water package as a creative medium for children prolongs the useful life of the package, making it a more sustainable concept

Eastar EB062 is free of Bisphenol A (BPA). The polyester family is regarded as the most environmental friendly of all plastics, because it can easily be recycled and processed for other purposes.
Y-Water accepts empty bottles for recycling.

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© Weslley Murylo De Souza Steeman

The "kangaroo" bucket packaging

2008-10-25T12:23:00.000-07:00

There are many consumer products, which consist of two components, and have to be packed separately as they have to be used separately, one after the other or mixed upon usage. Consequently they are often not properly used, because the consumer can’t find one of the components anymore or one is forgotten or neglected to be used. Following the successful introduction of the Eco-Cleaning Lab's Twin by TricorBraun, the same company introduces a "kangaroo pack" for Avlon Affirm Hair Care. Just as ingenious as simple.

'Hair Care Avlon Affirm’ is a two-step treatment for hair care, especially for hairdressing salons. The new 4-lb (1.8 kg) "kangaroo" bucket pack contains a "built-in space" in which a 4-oz (115 gr) pre-treatment bottle is stored. The content of the bucket is for the second treatment step. This merger of two packages avoids the problem that one of the bottles for the pre-treatment and the treatment itself, goes lost or is not used.

With the 'kangaroo' design, allowing the second bottle easily to be clicked into place in the recessed space in the bucket, Avlon Industries, a manufacturer of hair care products for the ethnic market, hopes to have introduced a constructive way to execute the two-step treatment correctly, by functionally merging the packages of the two components. Hair stylists may no longer overlook the pre-treatment, and can no longer use the excuse that the pre-treatment bottle was untraceable or ergo just skip the pre-treatment and forget the bottle to use what may be the case with separate products.

The unique packaging promotes the attention the product gets on the store shelves from both hair stylists and ordinary consumers.
Designed by TricorBraun, the 'kangaroo' bucket is, in addition to the attractive marketing aspect and increased efficiency in hairdressing salons, also in two ways cost saving. It increases the efficiency in production, as the two products don’t need to be packed separately in shipping boxes and the new ‘kangaroo’ packaging diminishes costs in the distribution chain, as the shipping boxes can contain now a relatively larger quantity of product.

Bag-in-Bottle

2008-10-25T12:16:00.000-07:00

Gaplast GmbH replaces a four-part production process with the one-piece AirLEssMotion Bag-in-Bottle System. The new co-extruded, blow moulded bottle consists of a rigid PP outer bottle and a flexible DuPont Surlyn inner bottle.

When an unnamed customer of Gaplast GmbH recently built a new factory, the company also decided to install a more efficient production process for its spray bottles with disinfectant. The existing 1 ltr bottles used for disinfecting laboratories and operating rooms required a four-step manufacturing process and a manual assembly. The bottles were HPDE extrusion blow moulded. A separate foil bag had to be fumbled into the bottles manually to guarantee the airless dispensing function, which is needed to ensure that germs or micro-organisms are not dispensed together with the disinfectant liquid. A connector and a gasket, manufactured by injection moulding, respectively, had to be welded to the foil bag to provide a sealing for the gasket.

Gaplast GmbH replaced the existing four parts from the old packinging by the one-piece AirLEssMotion Bag-in-Bottle System. The new co-extruded, blow moulded bottle consists of a rigid outside PP bottle and a flexible DuPont Surlyn inner bag. The old flexible inner bag was made from a polymer alloy of two different polymers. As the polymer alloy would stick to the PP wall of the outer bottle, a separation layer would have been necessary in the new bottle. Gaplast GmbH replaced the polymer alloy with a DuPont Surlyn bag.
However, when the dispenser was activated, the vacuum created by the dispensing pump turned out to be not enough to separate the Surlyn inner bag from the PP wall of the outer bottle. In order to solve this problem Gaplast GmbH made two ventilation holes in the outer bottle without punching the inner bag. These two holes ensure the inner bag to collaps once the dispenser is activated. Delamination of the inner bag from the wall of the outer bottle guarantees a constant dosage of the trigger pump. The airless technology and the gamma sterilization after filling eliminate the need of preservatives.

In addition to savings on raw materials, the new packaging also simplifies an efficient waste control, when removed, as bottle and bag belong the same polymer family.
The bag-in-bottle packaging received the prestigious 2008 Dupont Award.

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info@amsteeman.com
© Weslley Murylo de Souza Steeman

Olfactory to improve taste

2008-09-19T13:33:00.000-07:00

What people think they taste is solely the result of inhaling odours. The tongue recognises only the five basic taste varieties. All other tastes are the result of odours. Odours enter, to put it simply, the nostril to the nasal cavity, where they are detected by the olfactory receptors and after that translated by the brain into tastes. The person gets the perception that the aroma he smells will be the taste he is ready to experience.

That’s why a seducing aroma tells a consumer he wants the product. If consumers are let the choice, 80% will choose the product he can see as well as smell. With 70% of the purchase decisions made in the supermarket aisles it is time for the consumer product manufacturers to incorporate the olfactory sense with the visual and tactile ones.

The olfactory packaging refers to the packaging which activates the sense of smell. Stirring these emotional senses might have as goal seducing the consumer to buy, but on the other hand in a pre-programmed form initiate a quality and/or aroma improvement leading to a better taste of the product to be consumed.

Three smelling systems
The cosmetic and personal care industries certainly have mainly interest in seducing the consumer. At this moment roughly three systems are known, which give a fragrance to the packaging. The first is printing the packaging with special inks, which release the required odour for a longer period. The second is encapsulating the fragrance in the packaging material.
Several companies (see side-bar) developed co-polyesters and copolymers using small microscopic channels in which the pre-set odour is incorporated in the material composition. The third, a more modest option, is the scratch-and-sniff label. Here the fragrance is ´packaged´ within the label, which the consumer can scratch to experience the odour.

In all three options the aroma or fragrance experienced by the consumer is just an imitation of what is really in the package. Never is the aroma of the product itself sniffed.
With exception of the ...... keep reading

Extravagance in Glass Bottles

2008-04-26T10:30:00.000-07:00

The supermarket shelves are overloaded and the consumers can’t see the wood for the trees, thanks to the extensive assortments showcased. And thus the consumer product companies have to do anything to attract the attention of the consumer to seduce him to make the purchase. Packaging designs as well as the excessively printed graphics are crying out for attention, but it seldom leads to extravagance.

That aspect you see only in the spring water, spirits, wine and champagne market segments, where the manufacturer intently creates a high exclusivity for himself and his product, targeting the top of the market, not infrequently turning the product presentation into idiocy.
It is obvious that the question: “Is it or is it not extravagance,” for simple (spring) water is answered at much a lower level than for champagne and other exclusive spirits. When a consumer has to pay USD 8,00 or USD 10,00 for a 750 ml (although luxuriously designed) bottle of ordinary water, it can be called extravagance. However I laid the bar much higher. The here described Bling spring water will cost you roughly USD 40,00 or more a bottle.
Evian takes the cake with its exclusive Alpine spring water in a limited edition bottle baptized Ice Queen, which goes for a minimum of USD 1.000.

The other, here described examples are: Gold Flakes vodka with edible gold flakes which sells for USD 60,00 a bottle. Although the price is not extravagant, the design surely is. The next example is the very limited edition of Bombay Sapphire Dry Gin for USD 200.000 (Yes, you read correctly: two hundred thousand USdollars). Super extravagant, even with the entire proceeds going to a charity.
Last but not least Veuve Clicquot’s rose champagne with a packaging that includes the champagne and a champagne cooler. Just USD 4.500.
Judge for yourself.

Water
Consumers buy bottled water for convenience, as a healthy refreshment or because of concerns about the quality of tap water. Bottled water sales have increased about 10 percent a year for the last decades, and some four years ago they passed sales of coffee, beer and milk in volume. But that is simple bottled water, a mass product, of which the consumer mostly doesn’t know where it is coming from. Ah, but there are magnificent springs in this world with crystal clear water and the companies which bottle from these springs like to be recognised in the world. Water for the upper class, the happy few.

The most lavishly decorated water bottle in the world
The bottle of Bling Beverages LLC, Beverly Hills, Calif., supplied by Saint-Gobain Containers and Vitro Packaging, is an acid etched frosted glass bottle hand-decorated with the most beautiful and luxurious genuine Swarovski crystals. Bling h2O, the creation of Hollywood producer Kevin Boyd, is available in 750- and 375-ml bottles, each size decorated with 60 genuine crystals. At the peak of ridiculousness, Bling offers the Swarovski crystal laced bottles of water at USD 34,95 per 750ml. Ridiculous or not, Bling h2O is an award winning water in an award winning frosted glass bottle with genuine Swarovski crystals and in the marketplace (bars and clubs, the product’s primary distribution channel), it often sells for substantially more.

Custom Beverage Solutions served as the product development consultant for this brand, strategically positioned to target the expanding luxury consumer market. Much of the USD 35 is due to the "limited edition" bottle decked out in Swarovski crystals. Billed as "couture water", it seemed as if people in Hollywood are flaunting their bottled water like it is part of their life-style. Whether the bottles had a cool shape or came from an exotic island, none truly made that definition, except Bling h2O. Arguably the most expensive bottled water in the world, before Evian came with its Ice Queen bottle, Bling h2o is clearly making water history.

Bottled at the Source in Tennessee, the water is a winner of the Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting Award. The spring flows a mere 275 m from the bottling facility thus reducing the possibility of contamination.

Over the last decade, the name Swarovski has become widely recognized as the brand that provides the sparkle on Oscar gowns, trendy iPod covers and Paris Hilton's crystal-crusted mobile phone. Crystals are fairly uncomplicated to produce: a combination of quartz sand and water melted at high temperatures. The rhinestone crystals, most often seen, are diamond like, clear and without colour. Its value as a luxury commodity comes from the perception of its quality and design, while the name Swarovski adds a certain prestige to a design. And it also raises the price.

Evian’s Ice Queen
Evian, one of the world's premier bottled water brands, is owned by the France-based Danone group. In 2001 the group became the world's largest producer of bottled waters (in terms of volume). But that’s not all. Since 1926 Evian is arguably, the No 1 in natural spring water in terms of quality. According to the factory every drop of Evian takes over 15 years to filter through the mineral rich glacial sediments in the pristine French Alps. Evian comes from the Cachat Spring located on the Southern shore of Lake Geneva, in the town of Evian-les-Bains and is bottled at the source.
To commemorate this exceptional position, Evian introduces, each year, a limited edition of its exceptional water in an exceptional bottle.

This year there are two designs. There is the one for the common consumer, who likes to go luxuriously once in his life. And there is the one for the happy few.
The Evian Prêt-à-Porter has a frosted lace pattern over the bottle, while the Haute Couture version is bottled with the same spring water but in an exclusive glass bottle in the shape of an ice queen with a voluminous alpine skirt.
The famous French fashion designer Christian Lacroix created both bottles.
The 750 ml Prêt-à-Porter hit the market in Canada for around USD 6,00, although up-market restaurants will charge you USD 9,99. The bottle, surely becoming a collectible, will end up at eBay, where the standard Lacroix bottle is offered at this moment for USD 50,00.
The Haute Couture bottle is a different story. Only 99 pieces have been created, which will be auctioned for a charity starting at USD 1.000. Doubtful that one will appear at eBay.

With creating new and innovative packaging Evian is not entering an unknown battlefield. The global premium spring water leader has been involved in fashionable packaging for decades. Unique designs like the Nomad sports bottle, the limited edition teardrop glass bottle, the flip-cap bottle, the 2007 French Alps bottle and the 2006 limited edition of Romero Britto glass bottle prove that Evian's commitment to packaging is firmly rooted. With the limited edition of Lacroix’s 2008 Ice Queen Evian obviously remains committed to providing creative appeal, premium style, and a luxurious experience to its consumers.

A Bottle As Gemstone
Bombay Sapphire London Dry Gin is a quality gin from the house of Bacardi and reports to be special due to the ten different plants used to flavour the gin. The brand is well-known around the world for its striking, translucent blue glass bottle design.
Having the aureole of exclusivity and craftsmanship, it is fitting then that through its links with the global design community, Bombay Sapphire supports the inspirational designs of international artists, designers and architects resulting in a highly limited edition of a very unusual bottle design.

Described as an artful collaboration between the distiller, the crystal polisher, the jeweller and the designer, Bombay Sapphire Revelation is a collection of only five absolutely breathtaking luxurious bottles. The bottles are honed in the shape of giant gemstones with 10-facets, each facet representing one of the botanical ingredients of Bombay Sapphire Dry Gin. All five bottles are identical with exception of the closures, which are each uniquely decorated with diamonds and sapphires.

The well-known Karim Rashid designed the five Revelation bottles, which were hand-crafted, honed and polished in France by crystal craftsman Baccarat, after which the British Garrard, the oldest jewellery house in the world, took care of the decoration with the diamonds and sapphires. Bacardi had simply to fill the bottles with the high quality gin.
The value of the collection is USD 1 million, but each bottle (price USD 200.000) will be exhibited separately, during a period of three months, at one of five international airports (London, New York, Dubai, Sydney and Singapore) around the world.
The proceeds of the sale will go to the charity, The Smile Train, which provides life-enhancing cleft surgery to children in poor countries. Along with the beautiful Revelation bottle the new owners will also receive a year’s supply of Bombay Sapphire gin.

Floating Edible Gold Flakes
Gold Flakes Supreme is a French quadruple-distilled vodka, made with 24-karat gold flakes that float and glitter magically in the glass.

Everything is special with Gold Flakes Supreme, the bottle as well as the liquid. It is an ultra-premium vodka drawn from crystal clear filtered underground spring water and distilled with the most expansive natural ingredients and adorned with 24-karat edible gold flakes, which float and glitter in the liquid.
The ultimate extravagance. And that is exactly the market segment Gold Flakes is projected at or as the company statement declares: “Gold Flakes is the perfect antidote to these uncertain financial times. It is a no risk venture, a liquid asset that will return the investment in pure pleasure.”

In the USA this unique French vodka is marketed by Shaw-Ross Importers for USD 60,00 a 750ml bottle.
Despite all its exclusivity, the unique ingredients, the with gold plated bottle and the edible gold flakes, this vodka costs only USD 60,00. You wonder whether it is all gold that glitters.
By the way never you are able to compare a martini mixed with this vodka, despite all its gold glittering, with the true extravagant and famous martinis as the “Engagement Ring Martini” or the one with the pearl at the bottom, but trendy clubs and upscale bars are starting to sell Gold Flakes as the next “it” thing in the world of glamorous drinking.

Veuve Clicqout Pink Champagne
For Karim Rashid it is the second collaboration with the Veuve Clicquot Champagne House, celebrating Veuve Clicquot's Pink Champagne. With Karim Rashid’s sweeping pink lines and feminine appeal, this Veuve Clicquot Globalight limited edition champagne cooler, he designed, intends to "encapsulate the bottle with warmth" and surround it with light. Karim Rashid is no stranger to luxury, as we have seen his designs for the extravagant bottle of Bombay Sapphire Dry Gin.
This is the latest collaboration between Veuve Clicquot and leading designers such as Andre Putman, Pablo Reinoso, Pucci, Christophe Pillet, Christian Schwamkrug of Porsche Design Studio, and Jason Bruges.

Reportedly Rashid drew his inspiration from a random brainstorming scribble and the idea of a purse or handbag. The creation serves 3 functions: serving as a way to showcase and carry the champagne, cooling the champagne, and lighting the champagne.
A bottle of Veuve Clicquot Rose will remain chilled for 4 hours and the LED lights will give a soft glow for the same time, making Globalight also an ideal accessory for exclusive outdoor entertaining.

Only 500 Globalights have been created worldwide. In the United States, they will be available from May on at http://www.e-clicquot.com for a suggested retail price of USD 4.500.

I know there are many more packages out there which you could classify as extravagant, but never forget that the term “extravagance” is a relative conception which definition often says more about the person than about the object. What is extravagant for me might just be luxurious for any other, or even common. As soon as it is a product exclusively for the snobbish or blasé populace and the used materials don’t have a technological function and the price of the final product is in disparity with the value of the product to be consumed, you can speak, in my opinion, of an extravagant packaging.

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Who says: “Art and packaging design are hard to combine.”

2008-04-11T14:00:00.000-07:00

Packaging labels often are imprinted with screaming promotion texts in gaudy colours in their attempt to attract the attention of the consumer, who often can’t see the wood from the trees. Luckily some consumer product companies are using a more educated market approach. To stand out on the crowded supermarket shelves they introduce real art in the printing of their packages with just a trifle of company promotion, inviting the consumer to reach out for the product to know more about it.

I sampled three recently introduced packages which combine art and packaging design so perfectly that they became collectables.

1. Coca-Cola Brasil
Each year during the Fashion Week in São Paulo, Coca-Cola Brazil launches its limited-edition Coca-Cola Light bottle decorated with a full-body shrink film from Sleever International.

The 237-ml glass bottle exclusively distributed during the Fashion Week and exclusively at places participating in the event has an outstanding printing quality for a fashion world highly sensitive to the aesthetic aspects of design and decoration.
The company used the Sleever Digisleeve to provide a high-quality personal touch to the decoration, providing full-body decoration with accurate positioning. The differences in the bottle’s diameter were overcome by optimal stretching of the film over the bottle’s contours.
The bottle won an ABRE Trophy in Brazil and a WorldStar for packaging.

2. Mountain Dew with Green Label Art
Last year Mountain Dew launched a limited-edition series of aluminium bottles featuring designs created by a variety of artists, the so called Green Label Art. This series marked the first time a carbonated soft drink was packaged in an aluminium bottle in the USA.
The Green Label Art artists are an eclectic mix, ranging in style and notoriety, from apparel and sneaker designers to a vinyl action/toy designer and a lead singer from a top indie band.
The artists were given a plain, 16-oz (474 ml) aluminium bottle and asked to create their expressions of Mountain Dew. Treating the bottles as a canvas, the artists used a variety of approaches and applications including: tattoo design, cut-and-paste materials, paint, charcoals and computer graphics.

3. Exquisite Wine and Contemporary Art
No doubt, art and packaging design combine perfectly.
After more than two decades in the limelight, Kenwood Vineyards' highly-acclaimed Artist Series Cabernet Sauvignon reigns as a premier marriage of fine art and fine wine. The combination of the fine art of winemaking with the work of contemporary artists creates an elegant, easily identifiable package, while promoting beautiful artwork at the same time.

The artistry displayed on the bottle and within makes each new Artist Series release an event and every Artist Series vintage a prime collectable. Yet Kenwood Vineyards has always seen the Artist Series Collection as a work in progress, with each vintage a unique opportunity to excel.
In the years since, the Artist Series has presented art by important artists from the past, including Pablo Picasso, Henry Miller, Alexander Calder and Tamara de Lempicka.
The Kenwood Artist Series for the Cabernet Sauvignon 2002 shows the inimitable style of the artist Kenjilo Nanao. The labels are pressure sensitive (so they can easily peeled off) and are printed on Estate # 8 paper. The label is six colours with foil stamping, with a high build silk screen. Heck Art in Beverly Hills, CA did the design adapting Kenjilo Nanao’s artwork.

For more images and enlarged images click here.

© Weslley Murylo De Souza Steeman

"Raccolto di Sardegna" - Microwave Artichokes Kissed by the Sun

2008-04-02T19:13:00.000-07:00

Artichokes are a delicacy, but difficult to prepare and therefore not very popular in the common household. Either you buy artichokes green and fight to get the hard outer leaves and thorns off the plant to stay with the heart which really is the delicious part of the plant or you buy hearts in tins of which the autoclave sterilisation process have destroyed most of the delicate taste.

Wikipedia tells us that “The Globe Artichoke (Cynara scolymus) is a perennial thistle. It grows to 1.5-2 m tall, with arching, deeply lobed, silvery glaucous-green leaves. The flowers develop in a large head from an edible bud about 8–15 cm diameter with numerous triangular scales; the individual florets are purple. The edible portion of the buds consists primarily of the fleshy lower portions of the involucral bracts and the base, known as the "heart"; the mass of inedible immature florets in the centre of the bud are called the "choke."

Delicious but hard to handle. The Italian cooperative Santa Margherita came up with a simple as well as brilliant solution. Microwaving artichokes? Nobody ever tried it before. But Santa Margherita did prepare them for cooking in the microwave and launched this novelty under the brand Raccolto di Sardegna: four ready-to-use artichokes, packaged to be cooked in a microwave.

Raccolto di Sardegna has the flavour of the sun of Sardinia slightly allayed by the sea breezes that fill the air with salt. Only here, on the plains of Santa Margherita di Pula in the south of Sardinia, the combination of sky, water and land, tilted by generations of farmers, result in extraordinary climatic conditions that make every artichoke a much desired delicacy with a rare and inimitable flavour.
The Santa Margherita Artichoke is a variety known as "Carciofo Spinoso Sardo", because it grows on the Italian island Sardinia and it shows some thorns. Its taste is so intense and pleasant that it is locally consumed even uncooked.

The special packaging presented by Santa Margherita contains four fresh ready-to-eat artichokes. Santa Margherita took care of the product's selection, cutting and washing. Only the "hearts" of these exceptional artichokes are left, after having removed the external leaves and all the thorns, freshly packed ready for cooking.
The cooking takes only a few steps as the packaging (without its plastic film) can be placed in the microwave straight-away with a cooking time of only 3 min. after which the artichokes are ready to be served. Microwave artichokes have a shelf-life of 15 days.

source: FreshPlaza

© Weslley Murylo De Souza Steeman - 80349

From Fridge to Mouth in 60 Seconds - Oscar Mayer’s Deli Creations

2008-04-02T18:48:00.000-07:00

You are hungry between meals or just want a quick lunch. What to do? If you go to the supermarket to buy a frozen sandwich and back in your office put the sandwich in the microwave, your hunger is over when you open the door after a minute and discover what the microwave have done with your nice sandwich. The meat or whatever is steaming hot and your roll is also hot, but soft and sad, sticking to the roof of your mouth when you try to eat it.

40% of the working Americans, according to a recent market research, eat lunch - it is amazing that it still has this title - still slaving at their keyboards. Approximately 70% continues working during lunch time or ‘steal’ just a few minutes to wolf down a quick bite. Of those who sneak time to eat, nearly two-thirds nibble on a cold lunch and say their meal is bland, boring or completely and utterly forgettable.
Oscar Mayer recognised the lunch problems.
“As we looked at the state of the lunch hour, we found many Americans were looking for convenient ways to free themselves of brown bag boredom and enjoy a hot lunch,” says Chris Carlisle, senior brand manager for Oscar Mayer, “So, we set out to create an innovative new product to satisfy America’s love for deli meats in a more convenient way.”

That’s nice sales talk, but how do you get a bread bun hot and crispy and your delis and other ingredients hot and nice tasting. And above all as quick lunch 60 seconds (We are in a hurry, remember)

Oscar Mayer’s Deli Creations sandwiches are complete. Each package contains all the fixings for a delicious sandwich with fresh-baked tasting bread, made with Kraft's proprietary dough technology, generous amounts of Oscar Mayer meats and Kraft cheese, plus Kraft condiments, specifically, Kraft steak sauce and Grey Poupon mustard. All ingredients are separately packed and are grouped upon a QuiltWave tray and packaged in a paperboard overcarton for marketing from the refrigerator case.
A consumer simply unwraps the various components to build the sandwich, and places the modelled sandwich on the QuiltWave tray for microwaving.
And that’s the secret.
The revolutionary QuiltWave active microwave packaging, a development of Graphic Packaging and composed from PET/adhesive/paperboard/adhesive/metallised PET/release coating, heats the bread to a soft and warm consistency, while at the same time fully melting the cheese and warming the meat. QuiltWave’s exceptional performance is due to unique laminated quilts, or pockets, which expand when exposed to microwave energy and provide close contact with the food product. The hot surface, immediately next to the food, drives away moisture and heats the bread just right to a fresh taste and texture without drying it out.

In addition to the QuiltWave microwave receptor tray, Deli Creations use a unique camphor-shaped outer carton produced by Graphic Packaging. The carton is made from 18-point (0,45 mm) solid unbleached sulphate and are litho-printed in seven colours, plus a glossy coating to attract shopper attention. The carton also incorporates a reverse-cut score opening mechanism for easy consumer access

Deli Creations are available in five stock keeping units (SKU's) - Steakhouse Cheddar, Oven Roasted Ham and Cheddar, Honey Ham and Swiss, Turkey and Cheddar Dijon, and Turkey Monterrey.

The QuiltWave microwave receptor tray allows the busy-bee to enjoy a delicious, hot Oscar Mayer Deli Creations Sandwich in about a minute

© Weslley Murylo De Souza Steeman - 70424

EcoLab’s Computer Designed Cleaning Twin

2008-03-30T22:33:00.000-07:00

Ecolab's Proforce Cleaners assemble a "work"-spray bottle nicely clicked in the contours of a bulk container. The consumer can refill the spray bottle from the bulk container. The TwinPack was specifically designed for two new cleaning products with the building service contractor (BSC) market in mind.
A bracket is mounted to the wall, similar to a bookshelf. The bottle glides into its place, securely held there by moulded-in grooves. The set up provides for a more organized and safer environment as the product is not stored underfoot and dispensing occurs without lifting heavy containers or spillage on the floor.

The 16-oz (474 ml) spray bottle is extrusion blow moulded from high-density polyethylene by MGS Manufacturing Group. The 1.25-gal (4,73 ltr) container, measuring 7 1/2”x5 1/4”x11 1/2” (18,8 x 13,1 x 28,9 cm), is extrusion blow moulded from high-resistance high-density polyethylene by Fortco Plastics. TricorBraun, the container distributor that supplied both bottles and other components to Ecolab, played a key role in the design and manufacturing.

Complementing the two bottles, the TwinPack comes with a dispensing spray fitment on the 16-oz spray bottle, and a spigot (used for refilling the smaller bottle) that fits alongside the 16-oz bottle in a “cave” created in the side of the larger bottle. There are also two screw caps on the top, a larger one where the spigot goes to dispense the cleaner, and a small cap that reveals a vent hole.
The packaging footprint was optimized for in-line filling lines with little changeover required. The package is very space-efficient for in-line handling, shipment and store display due to cubed shape and stacking nubs designed in the container top, bottom and side panels, as well as the indented “pocket” area in the package for the sprayer bottle and spigot.

The large container has a 7” x 18" (15,6 x 45,2 cm) pressure-sensitive label from Meyers adhering to three sides of the large bottle and manually labelled immediately after blow moulding when the bottles are still warm. The labels are designed with 4% shrink to reduce wrinkling as the labelled bottles cool. That keeps the graphics looking nice and neat. The shrinkage occurs within the first 15 minutes after blow moulding.

During the development, the Ecolab team called on Stress Engineering Services (SES), to conduct state-of-the-art stress engineering modelling to help in the design of the bottle and mould. SES also interfaced with TricorBraun, whose role was crucial in last-minute tweaking.
Design studies and computer modelling and simulations were performed to predict problematic areas, and adjustments to the package were made accordingly. A particularly effective feature is the load-locking nubs at the top of each container that fit into corresponding indents in the bottom of the container positioned above it. The design helps stabilize the load and contribute to a case-free pallet.
Its rectangular shape guarantees efficiency in handling, shipment, storing and display. An 80-count, two-layer-high unit load achieves 98.5% of “perfect” pallet utilization.

From the beginning the project was baptised “Legoland”, as it was targeting a solution in which the containers could be stacked in different orientations.

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© Weslley Murylo De Souza Steeman
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For more and more enlarged images go to: “The Best Innovations in Packaging - 2007″

JavaPop’s Organic Coffee On-The-Go

2008-03-30T20:54:00.000-07:00

Who is able to start his working day without the oh-so-needed shot of caffeine? But at the other hand, who has time to brew a nice fresh cup of coffee? Don’t count the British, they, incredibly as it may sound, crave for their ‘nice’ cup of tea.
In recent years the US consumer market for on-the-go coffee exploded. Most beverage manufacturers hastily introduced, with or without the most fantastic packaging design, products, said to be based on coffee, to supply the busy consumer with some “fresh brewed” coffee in the morning. Other companies introduced iced-coffee in the market. Few rolled out a trial for “coffee-soda”, a carbonated coffee drink.

Coca-Cola was the first with its BlaK, a stimulant based on the original Coca-Cola recipe with (according to the manufacturer) natural flavourings and real coffee. The low carbonated drink with a minimum in calories was planned to attract the adult consumers. Albeit Coca-Cola denied that BlaK only was a taste adjustment and was made of real coffee-essence, it soon turned out that the soft drink was nothing more than cola with additional flavours and an extra dose of caffeine. A blooper.

Completely different is the story of JavaPop. With the growing influence of the movement for organic products, JavaPop Inc., wanted to introduce a healthy alternative for the ready-to-drink coffee market.
JavaPop came up with the first organic, certified Fair Trade coffee soft drink. A carbonated, dairy free, 100% natural coffee drink. JavaPop is sweetened by certified organic pure cane sugar, free of finely refined sugars, chemicals, preservatives, artificial colouring and flavouring.

The product comes in five tastes: Espresso, Vanilla, Mocha, Hazelnut and Caramel and uses as basis the coffee beans from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and freshly squeezed pure cane sugar juice. The product is organic and the packaging is made from 100% recycled basis material.

For enlarged images go to: "The Best Innovations in Packaging - 2008"
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