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Scott's plants new zipper on Miracle-Gro bags

In January, The Scott's Co. is replacing a traditional reclosable zipper with a sliding version on its 8- and 16-qt bottom-gusseted, stand-up bags of Miracle-Gro® potting mix.

Pw 19737 In Jan The Sco 4

Supplied by Pactiv Corp. (Lake Forest, IL), formerly Tenenco Packaging, the Hefty® Slide-Rite® closure system "is an innovation that we developed to stay ahead of the competition and continue to be a leader in new products and packaging," states Dan Renner, senior brand manager for Marysville, OH-based Scott's.

Renner says that Scott's and Pactiv "spent about two years developing this particular zipper for our category, and we're the first in our marketplace with it. The zipper is unique in that it works 100 percent of the time." Renner says he also likes that the soil "doesn't get into and contaminate the tracks as it sometimes does with conventional zippers."

Scott's uses two film structures, from different suppliers, for the bags. One structure includes 1.5-mil clear linear low-density polyethylene/reverse printing/3.5-mil LLDPE. The other is 48-ga polyester/4-mil LDPE. Both structures are adhesive-laminated, with eight-color flexographic printing providing graphic appeal.

Film is shipped to Pactiv for bag making and zipper application. The zipper includes two blended PE tracks, one for each inner side of the bag. There are also two injection-molded polypropylene "clips" that hold the tracks at both sides, and an injection-molded PP sliding profile that rides the tracks to open and close the bag. Premade bags are semi-automatically filled at 20 Scott's plants, where only slight modifications to sealing units were needed to accommodate the new zippers.

The Miracle-Gro bags equipped with the Slide-Rite zipper enjoyed a successful market test this summer and will roll out nationally by Jan. 1 at lawn-and-garden centers, home centers, mass merchandisers and independent hardware stores.

At roughly $3.50 for the 8-qt size and $4.90 for the 16-qt, the products retail for the same price as their predecessors, even though "the zippers probably cost us three times as much as the other zipper," Renner admits. "But we think it's a packaging innovation that meets the needs of our customers." In January, The Scott's Co. is replacing a traditional reclosable zipper with a sliding version on its 8- and 16-qt bottom-gusseted, stand-up bags of Miracle-Gro® potting mix.

Supplied by Pactiv Corp. (Lake Forest, IL), formerly Pactiv Packaging, the Hefty® Slide-Rite® closure system "is an innovation that we developed to stay ahead of the competition and continue to be a leader in new products and packaging," states Dan Renner, senior brand manager for Marysville, OH-based Scott's.

Renner says that Scott's and Pactiv "spent about two years developing this particular zipper for our category, and we're the first in our marketplace with it. The zipper is unique in that it works 100 percent of the time." Renner says he also likes that the soil "doesn't get into and contaminate the tracks as it sometimes does with conventional zippers."

Scott's uses two film structures, from different suppliers, for the bags. One structure includes 1.5-mil clear linear low-density polyethylene/reverse printing/3.5-mil LLDPE. The other is 48-ga polyester/4-mil LDPE. Both structures are adhesive-laminated, with eight-color flexographic printing providing graphic appeal.

Film is shipped to Pactiv for bag making and zipper application. The zipper includes two blended PE tracks, one for each inner side of the bag. There are also two injection-molded polypropylene "clips" that hold the tracks at both sides, and an injection-molded PP sliding profile that rides the tracks to open and close the bag. Premade bags are semi-automatically filled at 20 Scott's plants, where only slight modifications to sealing units were needed to accommodate the new zippers.

The Miracle-Gro bags equipped with the Slide-Rite zipper enjoyed a successful market test this summer and will roll out nationally by Jan. 1 at lawn-and-garden centers, home centers, mass merchandisers and independent hardware stores.

At roughly $3.50 for the 8-qt size and $4.90 for the 16-qt, the products retail for the same price as their predecessors, even though "the zippers probably cost us three times as much as the other zipper," Renner admits. "But we think it's a packaging innovation that meets the needs of our customers."

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