The privately held Italian-Dutch global manufacturer of confectionery and gum launched SHARE-A-BOWL by teaming up with Sonoco Flexible Packaging, which acquired the PrimaPak technology when it purchased Clear Lam Packaging in July of last year.
PrimaPak is a flexible, stackable, and reclosable package produced from a single roll of film on vertical form/fill/seal machinery. Designed as a replacement for stand-up pouches and rigid packaging such as trays or jars, it provides enhanced merchandising pop through its efficient cube shape and six panels. It also turns into its own serving dish because it lies flat and because the unique peel-back top has a hinged quality to it. That means it stays open and lets folks reach in at will to pick the next piece of candy. Due to its lightweight rectangular shape, it improves packaging cube by up to 30 percent, maximizes manufacturing efficiencies, reduces warehousing space, and minimizes transportation demands.
Typically, bulk candies are merchandised in rigid PET containers, stand-up pouches, or lay-flat pillow packs. So Perfetti saw the PrimaPak format as a differentiator as they set out to launch a 125-count package of individually wrapped Mentos Mint or Mentos Fruit candy. Product is made and individually flow wrapped in a Perfetti Van Melle plant in Breda, the Netherlands, and then shipped in bulk to a contract packager here in the U.S. There the PrimaPak roll stock material—an adhesive lamination of polypropylene/polyester/PP—is fed into an intermittent-motion modified Ilapak vertical form/fill/seal machine that produces finished packs at about 40/min.
