Florida’s Natural Growers, Lake Wales, FL, markets a wide variety of fruit juices to retail and foodservice outlets across the U.S. and internationally. The cooperative’s flagship products are premium not-from-concentrate orange and grapefruit juices offered in paperboard gabletop cartons and PET bottles.

The juice cooperative was looking for a way to distinguish its products in the marketplace. Director of operations for Florida’s Natural Growers Steve Kullberg says, “Our major competitors recently have started blending in imported juice, and we use 100% Florida juice. We thought that our consumers would like to know about this distinction.”

After evaluating options, Florida’s Natural Growers decided to implement a pressure-sensitive labeling system designed by label and insert technology specialist Unique Solutions to apply “100% Florida. Never Imported” labels to its preprinted packaging.

Kullberg says, “We selected Unique Solutions to help us on this project because of a meeting at a business conference. We discussed their capabilities to accomplish rapid turnaround and supply both the labels and labeling equipment. The concept of a turnkey on-pack labeling project was appealing to us because we have minimal experience with this type of on-pack program.”

First effort

In September 2007, the first Florida’s Natural Grower products to incorporate the new on-pack promotional p-s labels were 64-oz gabletop cartons of not-from-concentrate orange juice. The preprinted, poly-coated, multilayer paperboard gabletop carton flats and carton form/fill/cap application/seal equipment are supplied by Evergreen Packaging.
The plastic screw caps are made by Portola Packaging.

After the preprinted cartons are formed, filled, sealed, and capped, they are date-coded with inkjet equipment from Videojet Technologies Inc., and then routed to labeling machinery manufactured by CTM Labeling Systems. The CTM Model 360 Series applicator modular labeling system applies p-s, single-ply, 2.5-mil, white poly, flexo-printed labels to the cartons, using cold-temp adhesive. The p-s labels, designed and produced by Unique Solutions, alert consumers that the juices are “100% Florida. Never Imported.” Unique Solutions is a distributor of CTM labeling equipment.

Kullberg reports, “We are labeling at speeds up to 150 cartons per minute. We have not seen any label adhesion issues with the coated surface of the cartons or with condensation on the cartons. Unique Solutions labels use an aggressive, permanent adhesive suitable for cool and wet applications.”

After the filled cartons are labeled, they are case-packed using side-load case packers from Schneider Packaging Equipment Co., Inc.. This equipment automatically erects the cases, loads in the cartons with a pneumatic pusher, and seals the cases.

The corrugated cases are supplied by Packaging Corp. of America from its Winter Haven, FL plant. Code dating, product description information, and bar codes are applied to the cases using Marsh Overture LT large-character inkjet case printers from Videojet Technologies Inc..

Kullberg summarizes, “We are very happy with the response from consumers that continues to come in supporting our product and the use of the ‘only-Florida’ oranges to make our juice. The shelf impact has been excellent, and the pressure-sensitive labeling equipment keeps up with our production lines. The line operators have found that the labeling equipment is easy to use and requires no additional staffing to operate and maintain.

“This Unique Solutions program also expands our use of the Internet. Our customers can link to our Web site www.floridasnatural.com where they can view the latest commercials and funny videos about imported oranges, and link to Farmer Dave’s blog.

The on-pack promotion program provided by Unique Solutions has helped us generate a large number of Web site hits and raise consumer awareness about our products. So, mission accomplished.”