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CP's eleventh-hour remedies work for Wal-Mart

Lake Consumer Products establishes new filling line to deliver innovative feminine hygiene package for the retail giant.

DISPENSING ACTUATOR. Lake Consumer Products' line of three colorful Beyond Fresh Intimates feminine hygiene products are sold in
DISPENSING ACTUATOR. Lake Consumer Products' line of three colorful Beyond Fresh Intimates feminine hygiene products are sold in

Confident in its new 11.5-oz Beyond Fresh Intimates line of three feminine hygiene products (see packworld.com/go/c164) packaged in inverted, clear plastic containers, Lake Consumer Products presented them to Wal-Mart for consideration early last year. The good news: Wal-Mart wanted the product in its stores nationwide. The challenge: The retailer wanted them in stores by May 2005.

With the help of supplier Terco, Inc. (www.terco.com), Lake Consumer Products was able to meet Wal-Mart’s deadlines. “Wal-Mart said it loved the Beyond Fresh Intimates line, but it resets its store aisles in May. If you’re not ready to ship before then, Wal-Mart won’t hold a spot for you,” says Michael J. Kermendy. He’s the director of marketing for Lake Consumer Products, a subsidiary of Jackson, WI-based Wisconsin Pharmacal Co., LLC (see sidebar, p. 51).

At that time, Lake relied on a contract packager (CP) to produce Beyond Fresh Intimates. “We had been working very closely with the company on developing the systems to fill the product,” explains Kevin Reed, Lake’s vice president of manufacturing. “It was a joint venture with closure supplier Seaquist Perfect Dispensing” (www.seaquistperfect.com).

Seaquist supplies an injection-molded polypropylene dispensing closure with an actuator, and an aerosol valve that’s hand-pressed to the mouth of the 19-g inverted polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) container from Graham Packaging (www.grahampackaging.com). “The CP had an aerosol filling line that it was adapting to fill the product into the PEN bottles,” says Reed.

Wal-Mart’s challenge was daunting enough, but Lake soon faced an even larger hurdle. “The CP filed for bankruptcy,” says Reed. “We had discussed bringing filling in-house as product sales grew, but when it went bankrupt, we had six to 10 weeks to put a line together.”

Reed recalls that Lake Consumer representatives had conversations with Terco’s people at the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute (www.pmmi.org) Pack Expo show in Chicago in 2004. “We laid out a timeline of what we needed and Terco said it could meet that timeline. In six weeks Terco had the line built.

“The advantage of Terco,” Reed continues, “is that it had the conveyors, tables, or stations, in stock to fill the product. We did performance testing at Terco’s facility in Bloomingdale, Illinois, then the company dismantled it and shipped it here. Its people came up here to train our personnel. The line was installed and set up in about another two weeks, so we were running the line by the end of February, eight weeks from when we issued purchase orders. We had to have product to Wal-Mart by the first of April.”

Product challenges, too

Kermendy says, “I think it’s critical to realize that there’s a delicate balance between the packaging and the content of the Beyond Fresh Intimates product.” Feminine Wash, Feminine Shave and Shower, and Feminine Skin Conditioner products are filled as colorful liquid gels. When dispensed, the products come out as foam.

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