Buyer Sam Di Santo of Trophy Foods, based in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, acknowledges that the new package is “significantly” more expensive than the clear LDPE bag with paper label that Trophy used to make on a vertical form/fill/seal machine. But the upcharge is recouped, he adds, by the additional sales generated by the new eye-catching package.
Available throughout Canada at supermarkets and mass merchandisers since last fall, the pouches sell in two sizes. Chocolate-covered almonds are in a 1.3-kg and 454-g format. Chocolate-covered raisins, chocolate-covered cashews, and yogurt-covered raisins come only in a 350-g pouch. The larger size sells for about $10 Canadian, the smaller for about $5C.
Trophy buys premade bags from Sonoco (Hartsville, SC) and fills them on a machine bought new for the application. Di Santo says he prefers not to identify the machine maker.
The bags are a 2-layer adhesive lamination of 48-ga polyester and 3-mil white LDPE. The polyester is reverse-printed in six colors on a gravure press. Anikk Communications (Mississauga, Ontario, Canada) worked with Trophy in developing the graphics. —PR
