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Kraft and co-pack partner integrate for success

For its first new-category foray in 15 years, Kraft chose ARI Packaging to ensure the success of its MiO flavored water enhancer as well as the integrated supply chain behind it.

ARI and Kraft worked together to design displays.
ARI and Kraft worked together to design displays.

Thirsty, but don’t have the pockets for cans or bottles? Don’t want to deal with powder packets? Seeing the opportunity to tap demand for a more convenient thirst-quencher, Kraft Foods introduced MiO water enhancer (www.kraftbrands.com/mio) to retail stores in March 2011. The naturally flavored, zero-calorie, sugar-free liquid concentrate comes in palm-sized, 1.62 -oz. packs that make roughly 24 8-oz. drinks.


MiO, Kraft’s first new-category foray in roughly 15 years, is an iPod for the palate for Millennials aged 18 to 34 who want to “personalize nearly every aspect of their lives — from iPod playlists to DVR recordings to smartphone apps,” as the company’s branding reps put it during the initial launch.


And just as Apple didn’t invent the Mp3 player, Kraft didn’t invent water-enhancing flavors; all-natural Capella flavor drops have been out for more than six years. Instead, Kraft has leveraged its vast product development, design and supply chain resources to create the right product, packaging and distribution network to grab a share of the billion-dollar flavored water market.


ARI Packaging, Inc. (www.adresinc.com), Alsip, IL, plays a major role in that network. The company operates from its 420,000 sq. ft. headquarters facility, and is expanding with a 170,000 sq. ft. facility it opened in December across the street from a Kraft plant. Expansion is ongoing as ARI serves Kraft and other customers.


“Our relationship with Kraft Foods has grown into partnership; a partnership that engenders mutual trust,” says Warren E. Lawson, ARI principal owner. That trust was forged, he says, as his company met and exceeded expectations, and showed a willingness to invest “our people, plant and equipment to continue to keep pace with their vision for growth.”


Evolution of a partnership
ARI’s roots go back to company’s found in 2000 as a minority-owned business that over time developed a successful track record with several Kraft brands by the time word came of a new product on the horizon.


“We were involved with Kraft from very beginning of the MiO concept,” says Dave DeAngelis, ARI’s account manager for the company’s overall Kraft relationship, citing meetings that date back to the fall of 2009. ARI worked directly with Kraft’s packaging R&D group from the earliest design stages for primary packaging through the creation of base product cases and secondary displays “so that from a brand perspective we were all on board with the basic design, shape, form, color and function. It was really a partnership,” DeAngelis says.


The first meetings began with the high level of confidentiality typical of global brand leaders. Even before the package and labeling requirements were finalized, ARI was given what DeAngelis characterizes as “loosely defined criteria that we would use to develop  and cost-out some of the initial primary and secondary packaging options — We didn’t even know what the product was at that stage.”


Today, ARI’s responsibilities include the following:

  • Primary packaging: Four full-body shrink sleeve applicators mated to steam shrink tunnels each crank-out hundreds of individual packs per minute.
  • Secondary packaging: Six-count paperboard cartons and alternately vacuum-formed trays are assembled.
  • Retail displays: Seasonal or promotional displays include clip strips, sidekicks, counter units, retail-ready PDQ trays, floor displays and pallet displays.
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