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Food, beverage packaging to star at supermarkets

New packages stand out for major brands like Snapple, Mrs. Butterworth's and Sara Lee at this year's FMI show.

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Visitors to the Food Marketing Institute show in Chicago, May 2 to 4, couldn't help but catch the wave of packages promoting health-conscious foods. These included Kellogg's new Ensemble(TM) line with graphics touting its cholesterol-fighting foods, a colorful redesign for The New Organics' packages expected to hit store shelves this fall, as well as several packs of fresh-cut produce.

In this report, Packaging World looks at some of the food and beverage containers, health-oriented or otherwise, that contributed to the wave at FMI's 1999 Supermarket Industry Convention and Educational Exposition.

Triarc Beverage Corp. was especially notable, displaying several new brands with striking bottles and labels. Its Snapple Elements line, for example, uses a custom glass bottle and biaxially oriented polypropylene label with transparent ink that matches the color of the beverage (see PW, June '99, pg. 2, or packworld.com/go/elements). As the contents are drained from the bottle, striking label graphics become visible.

White Plains, NY-based Triarc also introduced Hydro(TM), Sun Tea, Mistic® Sun Valley Squeeze(TM) and Mistic Italian Ice Smoothies beverages at the show.

For its first proprietary hot-filled polyethylene terephthalate bottle (above right), Triarc faced a considerable challenge. The bottles for Hydro "all-natural thirst quencher" and Sun Tea require recessed vacuum panels to prevent bottle collapse during the fill, but Triarc also wanted the panels to serve as a decorative element. The panels were angled to create a more esthetic look, and they were positioned on the bottom half of the bottle. A label is applied around the bottle's top half.

Mary Ellen Reis, vice president of packaging for Triarc, worked on Hydro and Sun Tea's package development for a full year. The eye-catching design for the 20-oz bottle comes from Kornick & Lindsay (Chicago, IL).

Initially, Reis says, many blow-molders rejected the project, saying that Kornick & Lindsay's design couldn't be achieved. Graham Packaging (York, PA), however, stepped up to the plate. "In most hot-fill bottle designs, functionality is the first concern," says Roger Prevot, senior vice president and general manager at Graham. "But in this project, the dominant force was esthetics."

Vacuum panels are usually positioned vertically on a bottle, with the parting line running along areas void of such panels. But because of the angled design, the parting lines had to run directly through the vacuum panels. Reis says the key to making the design work was Graham distributing the plastic correctly in the preform to avoid problems during the injection/stretch blow-molding process.

Another problem with the panels: Reis wanted them to be small to leave room for the label on the top half of the bottle. But in order for the panels to function properly during hot-filling, they had to be fairly large and preferably vertical. "The body portion of the bottle with the panels is much smaller than your typical hot-fill bottle like Gatorade," Prevot says. "R&D was testing and revising and testing and revising different geometries of the panels so that they look great and also work."

Reis was dead-set against a label covering the vacuum panels because "they make an unpleasant sound when you grip [the bottle]. Plus, it wouldn't provide good shelf presence with the label on the lower-third of the bottle," she says. Reis worked with Mobil Chemical Co. (Pittsford, NY) to find a substrate that could be labeled from rollstock and keep up with the fast hot-filling speeds. Reis says she rejected a sleeve of polyvinyl chloride because it was too costly and the labelers wouldn't provide the required speed.

Mobil's Label-Lyte® BOPP film did the trick. Mobil laminates two layers of the 1.2-mil film together to create the quality appearance sought by Snapple. Salem Label (Salem, OH) flexo-prints the film in six colors and sends it to Snapple's various co-packers across the U.S. The bottle's 48-mm neck diameter is topped with a white injection-molded PP closure from White Cap (Downers Grove, IL).

Triarc wanted to make a splash with the Hydro bottle. "We talked to a lot of consumers about what Snapple should be like in a plastic package," says Neil Kimberley, Snapple brand director. "We tried to find a fluid that would fit the package. [Hydro] is a lighter-tasting fruit drink," which Snapple believes is appropriate for the bottle.

Hydro and Sun Tea retail between 99¢ and $1.19 and will be rolled out nationally throughout the summer. Sun Tea was first available on May 16, when New York's Yankee Stadium hosted "Snapple Sun Tea Day."

Other Triac launches

Another Triarc launch was Mistic Sun Valley Squeeze (left), a vitamin-enriched fruit drink with a striking full-body label. As with Hydro and Sun Tea, Sun Valley Squeeze's bottle is PET and holds 20 oz. Unlike those bottles, however, the Sun Valley bottle is somewhat hourglass-shaped, and it's not hot-filled. It's injection/stretch blow-molded by Plastipak (Plymouth, MI) and CNC Containers (Tumwater, WA).

"Our research shows that excellent distribution opportunities exist for Sun Valley Squeeze," says Matt Sawyer, vice president of marketing for Mistic. "Twenty-ounce plastic products, which account for 10 percent of total volume, are underdeveloped in all channels. According to AC Nielsen, 20-ounce plastic is outperforming the alternative beverage category with 38 percent growth."

The cold-filled bottle also takes the same label as Hydro, a 1.2-mil BOPP structure from Mobil, but on the Sun Valley Squeeze it's a full-body shrink sleeve. Reis says she wanted a full-body sleeve because it gives the bottle a proprietary look. Salem Label flexo-prints the label in six colors. The closure is 38-mm injection-molded black PP from Alcoa Systems Intl. (Philadelphia, PA). On the market nationwide since May, the beverage retails between 99¢ and $1.29.

Triarc's Italian Ice Smoothies bottle (above right) from Mistic is designed to look like a scoop of Italian ice in a cup. The Coleman Group LLC (New York, NY) developed the innovative design of the press-and-blow glass bottle from Anchor Glass (Tampa, FL). Reis says glass provides shelf stability for this hot-filled 12-oz milk-based beverage.

Spear (Mason, OH) prints the clear PP label in a combination rotary screen and rotary letterpress in seven colors. The pressure-sensitive label is 2-mils thick. The bottles are prelabeled by Anchor prior to filling. The metal lug cap is supplied by White Cap and Silgan Container Corp. (Woodland Hills, CA). Italian Ice Smoothies have been on the market since April and retail for $1.19 to $1.39.

Despite the strong presence of health-related foods, some FMI exhibitors showcased foods aimed at satisfying the occasional indulgence. A good example was Sara Lee Bakery. The Chicago-based company introduced two single-serve items at FMI, Cheesecake Bites and Cheesecake Singles (below).

Richard Boos, Sara Lee's packaging manager, says Bites and Singles were the company's first products to develop this theme. "Our packaging graphics aim to support the theme," he says. "And we're very pleased with the package."

The individually packaged Bites are available in three varieties, with each Bite weighing less than 1 oz. Bites are wrapped in a 1.7-mil, two-layer lamination of metallized OPP and OPP. The metallized outer layer is flexo-printed in four colors by CSD, a division of Pac One (Minnetonka, MN). The wrapped Bites are packaged in 10-count quantities, in a 20-pt solid bleached sulfate rectangular folding carton printed offset in six colors by Malnove (Omaha, NE).

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