Department of Peachy Ideas: Put It in a Fancy Glass Jar

When Tri Valley Growers recently peered into its crystal ball, the San Ramon, Calif.-based farm cooperative saw a frustrating market picture. Canned fruit sales were stalled because many younger grocery shoppers favored fresh food and just weren’t pushing their carts down the canned food aisle.

But instead of pumping up the marketing volume on its existing products, the growers cooperative decided to introduce a new premium-priced line of fruit packed in glass containers that look like traditional Mason jars.

The wide-mouthed containers filled with cling peaches, apricots and pears are hitting a chord with shoppers who perceive the fruit as better than canned but free of the hassles associated with fresh fruit.

Other fruit packers, including Del Monte Foods Co., have also started to woo shoppers with premium fruit in fancy glass jars.

Many food and beverage products are similarly ripe for packaging innovations, said Ken Miller, a vice president with IDI Inc., an Edgewater, N.J.-based design firm that crafted the ice cream-style swirl shape for Snapple’s new Whipper Snapple dairy drink bottle.

“Cereal box designs stink,” Miller said. “But like many industries, the challenge for companies in an incredibly competitive business is coming up with a functional [package] design that isn’t going to cost more than today’s boxes.”

Beverage and food companies have long paid attention to the cups, bottles, cans and other containers used to present products to consumers. Several designers and marketers cited Coca-Cola Co.’s decades-old contour bottle as the prime example of good packaging.

“Coke gets it when it comes to design,” Miller said. “Look at its famous bottle. . . . The lip fits the mouth perfectly and the ribbing engages you; it feels right in your hand. It just feels right.”

Coke spent years testing plastic versions of its contour bottle, and when the finished product was introduced five years ago, the expensive R&D; effort proved to be worthwhile, said John Sicher, editor of Beverage Digest, a Bedford Hills, N.Y.-based newsletter.

“The [plastic] bottle has been a huge driver of volume for Coke,” Sicher said. “That bottle proved once and for all the importance of packaging’s role in differentiating product on store shelves.”

Coke continues to experiment with new containers, ranging from an aluminum Coke can that mirrors the furrowed look and feel of the contour bottle to a Sprite can with embossed printing.

PepsiCo Inc. also is actively developing packages to help spur sales of its soft drinks. It has experimented with a cup that features a twist-off top. And in August, it began marketing its “Cruiser Cup,” designed to bolster drink sales at fast-food restaurants.

Most fast-food consumers buy drinks to wash down what they eat on the premises, and soft drink sales fizzle when they place to-go orders. The reason: Consumers think twice about lugging along a paper cup that’s likely to turn to mush or tip over onto their laps--particularly the giant-sized soft drink cups now available.

Soggy cups may be an irritant for consumers, but they represent considerable lost business for restaurants and soft drink companies.

Pepsi in August began marketing the Cruiser Cup through Irvine-based Taco Bell Inc.’s restaurants.

Pepsi’s 32-ounce polystyrene cup incorporates stronger sidewalls, a lip that’s more likely to keep the top in place and a molded bottom that fits into car cup holders and the grasp of children and adults with smaller hands.

The lightweight cups, festooned with pictures of Taco Bell’s now-famous TV commercial Chihuahua are getting solid marks from customers--so much so that the chain recently started using them to serve medium-sized drinks inside its restaurants, replacing paper cups.

Cup manufacturers describe the simple design twist as a revolutionary development in an industry that, with the exception of heavier plastic cups used during promotions, has changed relatively little over the decades.

“The new cups test extremely well with consumers at restaurants and in sports stadiums where people have struggled to carry drinks back to their seats,” said Bernie Campbell, a sales manager for Whirley Industries Inc., a Warren, Pa.-based company that makes plastic and paper cups. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the new cups completely replace paper when it comes to 32- and 44-ounce sizes.”

Some packaging advances are recognized as classics--Miller points to the Pez candy dispenser and the Pringle’s potato chip can as consumer-friendly designs that also are functional.

But others fizzle because they’re too costly, don’t appeal to consumers or are unfriendly to the environment--such as the plastic “clamshells” no longer used at fast-food restaurants.

“There are lots of packages that we take for granted that could be much better-executed,” Miller said. “The trick is being able to understand what really floats your boat as a consumer. And the trouble is that consumers can’t always tell you in words what they like.”

That doesn’t stop marketers from experimenting. Campbell Soup Co. broke with tradition in 1996 with a new line of “fresh-tasting” soups packaged in clear glass jars rather than the company’s familiar red-and-white cans.

Coors Brewing Co. continually tweaks its beer bottles and cans to make its products stand out on store shelves. “We’re the No. 3 guy in a hyper-competitive business,” said Dave Taylor, Coors’ corporate communications manager.

“There’s also been an explosion of microbrews, so the look you have, the way you package your product, is critical,” Taylor said.

Newcomers also are using innovative packaging to help gain visibility on crowded grocery store shelves. Lake Success, N.Y.-based Arizona Beverage Co., which produces a variety of cold tea drinks, has won several design awards for its use of distinctively tall glass bottles wrapped in bright labels.

The company also markets a sports drink packaged in a plastic container that incorporates a molded hand grip, a thermal barrier to keep the drink cold and a dual-flow spout. Food Processing magazine voted the can one of 1998’s most interesting products, and Beverage Industry magazine listed it as the industry’s best package for 1997.

Arizona Beverage has grabbed the lead, observers say, in using shrink-wrapped labels with tasteful graphics that seem to be painted onto the bottles. The company has the ability to change labels quickly without dramatically adding to packaging costs.

“If the product doesn’t deliver once a consumer tastes it, you’re dead in the water,” said Arizona Beverage Vice President Francie Patton. “But we know that our packaging has had a lot to do with our success.”

Marketers say that simply turning to new packaging isn’t always a viable solution when it comes to building sales.

Rather than plunking its Growers’ Private Reserve fruit line down on the same shelf as its canned lines, Tri Valley Growers successfully lobbied grocery operators to market the line from fancy carts positioned near the produce section.

“We took a stable, somewhat declining category--fruit in cans--and put it into glass containers sold near the fresh produce section and revitalized the category,” said Steve Swasey, a Tri Valley executive.

“And we found a way to successfully introduce our product to customers who never travel down the canned food aisle.”