Nabisco enters variety snack category in stand-up pouches

Currently test marketing in Buffalo NY Denver CO and Jacksonville FL the 7"-wide 10.5"-tall pouches hold four SnackWell's(TM) reduced-fat chip varieties-5.5 oz of original and cheddar n' sour cream potato crisps and 7 oz of SnackWell's Salsa Ranch and Cheddar Taco tortilla chips. The pouches are also being used to hold 9.5 oz of Ritz snack mixes in traditional cheddar and ranch flavors.

The pouches constructed of a lamination of polyester/metallized polypropylene/sealant from Printpack Inc. (Atlanta GA) are packaged on horizontal form/fill/seal equipment built by Klockner Bartelt/Medipak (Sarasota FL). The equipment is engineered to apply a wide-track heavy-duty polyethylene Fresh-trak® zipper from Presto Products Co. (Appleton WI).

"We selected Doyan bags because of their stand-up stability on store shelves and the resealable Chip-Zip feature not found on other salty snacks" says Jeff Cohen senior director of new business for Nabisco. Compared to conventional pillow pouches Cohen reports that focus groups found the Doyan pouches "more attractive and preferred them for portability ease of opening handling and storage." Nabisco indicates that in-home testing of the pouches found them to "offer superior breakage protection and prolonged freshness compared to standard pillow pouches."

For sale: ANC's glass food can businesses

Foster Forbes Glass Co. (Marion IN) and the food can operations of American National Can Co. (Chicago IL) are up for sale as part of a corporate restructuring and debt reduction strategy being implemented by ANC parent Pechiney Intl. S.A. (Paris France).

A committee of Pechiney Group operating managers has been considering the sell-off of the two packaging operations (along with some nonpackaging assets) since the beginning of the year. With Pechiney's commitment to aluminum the glass container and U.S. food can operations were considered "assets representing those segments without links to other sectors of the Group." The company has held discussions "with several interested parties" but to date a buyer or buyers have not been identified.

Foster Forbes is the smallest of the four remaining merchant glass container manufacturers left in the United States. It has ten glass container plants and currently has an 11% share of the U.S. glass container market. ANC's food can works rank third in the U.S. after Crown Cork & Seal Co. (Philadelphia PA) and Silgan Plastics (Chesterfield MO). Part of the food can operations slated to be sold is the Omni plastic barrier bowl business. ANC is one of only two companies now making the multilayer bowls in the U.S.

Even after the divestiture which it hopes to complete within two years Pechiney/ANC remains one of the largest packaging suppliers in the world with interests in aluminum beverage cans flexible packaging blow-molded plastic containers and plastic and aluminum tubes.

California Pepsi signs up Ball to make PET bottles

Ball Corp.'s new Plastic Container Div. (Atlanta GA) has signed up its first PET bottle customer: the California operations of Pepsico (Somers NY). The two companies have signed a long-term contract for Ball to produce bottles out of a new Los Angeles plant to be running by January 1 1996.

Not to be confused with the plastic barrier container business Ball got into in '84 and out of in '89 Ball's Plastic Container Div. was formed last November to focus primarily on the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) container business. In March the company opened an office and laboratory in Smyrna GA. "Our agreement with the Pepsi-Cola Company is a significant piece of business and marks our entry into the most populous state in the United States" says Larry J. Green president of Ball's Plastic Container Div. and a former executive with Constar Intl. (Atlanta GA).