Last month, Shelf Impact! also asked the following question: How do you validate the return on investment when using a contract packager for your package development? Here are some of your responses:

In southeast China, packaging for food that can spoil has to work doubly hard. Beyond brand communication, it has to protect the product from the region ’ s heat and humidity.

In South Korea supermarkets, Daesang, a food marketer, has re- launched its Daesang-brand luncheon meat and pork products in rectangular two-piece aluminum cans closed with an Easy Peel® end, designed by Impress.

Kerr Dental wanted to improve package durability and functionality for its OptiDisc Finishing and Polishing Disc Set, used by dentists.

“ Your packaging can ’ t be bland or you ’ ll be overlooked, ” says Valencia Wolf, Product Manager at Brown & Haley, a marketer of confectionary products. Accordingly, Brown & Haley is rolling out a composite canister for its Almond Roca ’ s Buttercrunch toffee that turns heads in club stores and protects the product.

For a marketer of household products such as Colgate- Palmolive, it ’ s critical to keep water from getting into a packaging system prematurely to activate the product before the consumer uses it.

From tamper evidence to production protection to designs with flair, these packages are the real deal.

Customize and offering something extra. Tyson, General Mills, Hershey, and Keurig show what works.

Six new packages strut their stuff. Packaging has become more closely aligned with corporate business strategies. Increasingly, it has a seat at management ’ s table.

It ’ s no secret that private-label brands have been gaining market share steadily at the expense of regional and national brands. But what ’ s striking about the latest independent study of store brands is that the growth is trickling down from food and beverage to non-grocery categories.

Anyone who creates packaging should take note of two significant trends occurring in the battleground that is the store shelf. First, the steady growth of retailer-brand products in food and beverage has begun to create a “ halo ” effect over non-grocery categories. Second, mega- retailers and specialty chains are stealing market share from traditional supermarkets, strengthened with shelves displaying an abundance of brands exclusive to their stores.