ConAgra needed a package offering both purchase appeal and user convenience for its Ro*Tel Ready to Eat Queso Dip. It found the answer in a custom-molded polypropylene cup with a shrink label.

Brand identity and packaging create premium Select line while also tying into the parent brand’s equity.

“ 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.

The leading edge of in-store pizza marketing is shifting to the refrigerated aisle in supermarkets, with fresh deli pizzas, and focusing less on the freezer case. Uno Foods, Brockton, MA, offers a good example of how packaging is playing a pivotal role in this trend.

Increasingly, it appears that products with a strong focus on simple packaging resonate best with consumers. However, the trick for packaging is to provide a relatively complicated solution in a very simple way. It’s even better when the solution is a bit playful.

That’s the case with My Dolmio Creamy Tomato Sauce from Masterfoods. Sold in the U.K. and Ireland, My Dolmio pasta sauces come in single-serve stand-up pouches. Of course, in the United States we would never have a product that also requires consumers to prepare pasta as a simple after-school snack, but that concept seems to work in the U.K. Kids cut open the pouch, pop it into the microwave, heat, remove, and pour. That’s where simplicity comes in.

Two features on this pouch help ensure success for kids and teens. First, the pouch’s curved “pitcher” shape helps ensure that when the container is opened, the heated contents will be less likely to “spurt out.” Second is the playful part. A thumbprint and the copy say “Hold me from here.” The pouch’s seal is wider in this area so that kids and teens can grab it there without burning their fingers—the sealed portion stays cool.

What a fun and easy-to-use package!

- By Lynn Dornblaser, Mintel International From Package Design magazine

Point-of-purchase (P-O-P) displays that are shoppable from multiple sides have become requirements in club stores and with some mass merchandisers. Murray Biscuit Co. collaborated with Multi-Dimensional Resources, a designer and manufacturer of P-O-P displays, to bring this P-O-P tactic to grocery stores.

Distinctive touches on arched carton covers for Godiva Chocolatier’s Platinum chocolates harken on the brand’s iconic horse-riding figurehead. The gold-stamped figurehead is the center of attention on the carton’s minimalist yet elegant design.

The figurehead is embossed on a special paper from McLean Packaging that’s wrapped around the lid. The dark-chocolate-color carton base, from Bennington Paperboard Co., offers a hint of what awaits inside the carton.

The dark chocolate color extends to the plastic tray inside the carton. The tray is thermoformed into a grid of cavities nesting each chocolate. The grid pattern breaks Godiva’s usual scheme, which has been trays of round or triangular cavities to match the shape of each candy piece.

Canisters of Whims cookies, from Pepperidge Farm, taper from a wide base and give the package a different shape in the cookie aisle. The canister’s shape and recloseable top make the package suitable for on-the-go snacking.

Carol Degener, Director of Innovation at Pepperidge Farm, says the container provides merchandising flexibility. The container may be displayed either on its overcap or upside-down on its base. Graphics are printed in different directions on both primary canister panels to accommodate either type of display.

Sonoco supplies the container, membrane, and overcap. The container includes an inner foil barrier layer laminated to a 15-pt SBS board reverse-printed in flexo in seven colors.

Link: Sonoco

On packages of Kraft Foods’ Chewy Chips Ahoy! soft chocolate chip cookies, graphics signal the convenience of operating Kraft’s Snack ’n Seal resealable packaging. A large portion of the pack’s top may be peeled open to withdraw cookies, then resealed for freshness and on-the-go convenience.

Jeanine Maresca, Chips Ahoy! Brand Manager, says AC Nielsen in-home research determined that consumers want more convenient snack packages. The Chewy Chips Ahoy! package responds to this desire with 15-oz packs with a suggested retail price of $3.99.

Packaging for Jays salty snacks is undergoing some subtle modernization, both in structure and in graphics. The goals, says new owner Ubiquity Brands, Chicago, are to modernize the appearance of the packages while reinforcing the equity in the venerable brand and to make a stronger brand statement for the different product varieties.

Ubiquity Brands believes strongly in consumer research. “Our consumers told us they loved Jays and felt they ‘owned’ the brand,” says Tom Reynolds, Executive Vice President for Innovation. “They told us they believed it is made locally and so was fresher and had better taste. And the brand’s tagline, ‘Can’t stop eating ‘em!’, is synonymous with the brand.”

The design challenge for Haugaard Creative was keeping as much equity of the existing packaging while contemporizing the look. Transparent inks and a metalized look make the packaging stand out across different products in the line.

Testing showed that consumers felt the reflective packaging indicated a more premium package.

Rising steel prices forced Olè, a vegetable packer in Morrinhos, Goias, Brazil, to select another packaging material. The company switched to a clear glass jar—and doubled its share of the green bean and corn market in three months.

The company says consumers like that they can see the product through the package.

O-I developed the jars for Olè. They carry the same 200 grams of product as the packer’s conventional steel cans, are competitively priced, and feature specialized easy-open metal closures from Rojek.

Link: O-I

Pioneer Snacks determined that meat snack consumers perceive unwrapped sausage sticks to be fresher and more wholesome than wrapped sticks. The company responded by enlisting Flowdesign to create new packaging for its line of meat sticks.

Individual snack sticks rest unwrapped in a plastic jar with clear labels bearing bold color accents. The package imagery tells consumers the product is “hot.”

The clear jar enables consumers to view the product and is also small enough in diameter to fit in a car cup-holder, sports bag, or backpack.

Link: Flowdesign

Link: Decorative Sleeves

The full-body shrink sleeve label is providing visual pizzazz on more and more packages. Ennis Foods Ltd., Donegal, Ireland, demonstrates that this labeling tactic can provide functional value in a kit package with Rumblers Chips ‘N’ Dip.

The product comes in a two-piece clear plastic bowl and base, each containing its own lid. One compartment holds the chips while the other contains the dip. A shrink-sleeve label, from Decorative Sleeves, holds the bowl and base together until the package is opened.

Miss Meringue, a San Marcos, CA-based division of Jacques Gourmet, took on this packaging challenge: Create greater distinction on the shelf in order to drive impulse purchases of its Miss Meringue brand of cookies.

The result is an eye-catching package that has caused Miss Meringue to more than double sales projections for the brand.

From Think*Plan*Deliver, the pouch’s metallized polyester film delivers striking highlights in the design via six-color gravure printing and the gloss of flexible film. The pouch becomes portable with a zipper from Presto Products.

Links: Think*Plan*Deliver
Presto Products