Two Exceptional Brands Each Gifted with 0.5M Free Closures

The product comes in a liquid format in an 8-oz stock PET bottle selected specifically to withstand hot-fill temperatures up to 185°F. Amcor provides the bottle, which is topped by a 38-mm clear polypropylene closure from Silgan, also chosen to meet hot-fill requirements as well as provide tamper-evidence. enterade is manufactured and packaged by co-packer Alternative Laboratories, LLC in Naples, FL.

At the time Entrinsic entered the contest in April 2019, its product had already been on the market since 2016, with national sales and distribution by Nestlé Health Sciences. The product is also available on Entrinsic’s site, enterade.com, and on Amazon. From the start, the bottle for enterade used a Silgan closure, so the award of 500,000 closures will be a continuation of its existing packaging.

Regarding the Datassential report, Del Regno says the information confirmed some of the things Entrinsic had already uncovered through its own consumer research. In particular, it confirmed that consumers believe “if a product like this did what it says it can do, it would be very helpful to people, and they’d be very interested in it,” he shares. “It kind of confirmed that market potential.”

Now commercial for several years, real users of the product have found that it does indeed do what it says it will do. “The response is overwhelming, frankly,” says Del Regno. “The side effects of cancer can be so bad that some people choose to discontinue treatment. enterade really has the power to give cancer patients back their life.”

Del Regno adds that Entrinsic is very appreciative of the award given by Silgan: “We’re very grateful because every opportunity like this is a chance for people in need of the product to learn about it.”

Innovation results in juice without the sugar

The second winner of Silgan’s FCFY competition is also a product born out of a firsthand experience with health concerns. Founder and “Chief Almond Presser” of Origin Almond, Jake Delon, says that as a first-generation immigrant, he was surrounded as a child with foods loaded with sugar and high carbs. “As part of an ethnic family, I grew up with a lot of sugary drinks and high-carb foods in the house. So it’s no surprise that I suffered from childhood obesity,” he says. “I brought that habit of having a lot of sugary foods in the house all the way into adulthood. But, I grew out of it and adapted to a healthier lifestyle.”

Ironically, Delon then found himself working as a marketing professional for major brand owners producing sugary and high-fat snacks. “I love marketing, but I felt a bit guilty because the foods I was marketing were the same ones that caused a lot of my childhood obesity,” he says. “So I decided to take the plunge and create something that was healthy yet actually delicious, to give back to society.”

The resulting product, which took 18 months and nine iterations to develop, is a refreshing, cold-pressed juice made from almonds. Given that its main ingredient is almonds, rather than “sugary crud,” as Delon puts it, “you swap all the sugars and carbs associated with fruit juice, and you replace them with good things like protein and good fats that come from almonds,” he says.

Delon adds that Origin Almond is the first mass-produced and mass-marketed cold-pressed almond juice on the market, due to the fact that the innovative technology used to create the beverage is very challenging.

The company was formed in 2017, but the brand existed as an in-market concept test for the first year and a half. Explains Delon, Origin Almond began with a version of the product in a handful of stores and learned where it “failed.” From that knowledge, it improved upon the product, tested it again, made changes again, and continued that process seven more times until the company was happy with the result. “This allowed us to create a highly evolved product in time for the official launch in February of this year,” he says.

When Delon entered the FCFY competition in early 2019, Origin Almond was far along in the package development process. For its bottle, it chose a 12-oz PET container from Merrimack Valley Plastics that was selected for its compatibility with High Pressure Processing. The company also looked at the sizes of bottles used in the category, and those that were most popular. Lastly—as with any start-up, Delon says—it came down to pricing. “We looked at which of the HPP-compliant and size-specific bottles were the lowest cost yet had the best quality, and we landed with the bottle we’re using now,” he explains.

The selection criteria for the cap were similar to that for the bottle, e.g., HPP-compatible, but it also needed to be available in Origin Almond’s distinct yellow brand color. They found what they were looking for in Silgan’s 38-mm DBJ closure made from high-density polyethylene.

While information on the company handling the co-packing of Origin Almond’s products is proprietary, Delon shares that Dora’s Naturals in South Hackensack, NJ, provides the High Pressure Processing that gives the almond juice its 75-day shelf life.

In marketing the Origin Almond line of four flavor varieties, Delon says the consumer data provided by Silgan was invaluable. One consistent point the company saw in the results was that consumers were intrigued by the concept of almond juice, but their number one question was, “What does it taste like?” From this insight, the company made changes to its packaging graphics to include visual food clues, including images of lemons, limes, ginger, coconuts, and pineapple, in addition to almonds, to give consumers a better understanding of the products’ taste. “That was a big help to us to get that validation that that’s what consumers are looking for when they first interact with our products,” confirms Delon.

Second edition of contest running now

In announcing the news on the winners of Silgan Closures’ first Free Closures for a Year competition, Miller said, “We congratulate enterade and Origin Almond for their outstanding submissions and would like to commend all entries in this past year’s contest. The team was impressed by all concepts, and determining the final winning entries was very challenging. We encourage all entries to re-enter in this year’s competition, set to run until March 2020.”

The current edition of the competition opened Sept. 1, 2019, and companies can submit entries until March 30, 2019. Silgan’s stock closure selection includes plastic, steel, and aluminum closures in a range of colors and sizes for processes that include cold fill, aseptic, Extended Shelf Life (ESL), HPP, hot-fill, and pasteurization. For contest rules, regulations, and the entry form, visit the website here.