“We chose to mimic the larger retail package with the highest amount of detail that we could,” says Chris Jones, marketing director. “The goal was to develop a bottle versatile enough to appeal to airlines, cruise ships, and other users of 50-ml bottles.”
Given the complexity of the asymmetric parent bottle (see packworld/go/c006), introduced two months earlier, it certainly wasn’t an easy task.
The new asymmetric bottle was introduced in Idaho and California last October. The 50-mL bottle is blow-molded of polyvinyl chloride by Poly-Tainer (Simi Valley, CA) and distributed prelabeled by Container and Packaging Supply (Eagle, ID). Manual application of a tamper-evident shrink band follows automatic capping of the 18-mm aluminum ROPP closure on an existing 50-ml bottling line at the same contract packager, Silver Creek Distillers (Rigby, ID) that runs the parent size. Gray Ottley, director of strategic planning for Silver Creek, says the bottle’s rectangular footprint allows them to run “nicely” on the line at a rate of 60 bpm.
“Poly-Tainer did a great job on this, including matching the glass bottle’s color,” says Jones.
Retailers can purchase the bottles in 12-count sleeve packs or as a 120-count case containing 10 sleeves. Packed in a 2x6 pattern, the bottles face outward in the 24-pt SBS paperboard sleeve. Printed in one color, the sleeves are supplied by Xpedx (Salt Lake City, UT) with rectangular die-cut windows that allow the product name to show through.
Jones sees the trial size as an economical way to provide samples to potential customers. “Feedback is good,” he reports. “It’s part of a one-two punch in the marketplace and is significantly helping the sales of our 750-ml bottle.” —RL
