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FIVE COOL TRENDS IN DISPLAY-READY CONTAINERS
High-quality graphics, six-color printing and a push to sustainability help check all boxes. BY CAROL BAREUTHER
The produce industry today expects its packaging to perform a soup- to-nuts range of functions. This is especially true of corrugated, of which some 7 percent of the
386 billion square feet of all U.S. shipments in 2017 is made into display-ready boxes or bins to carry produce, according to data from the Fibre Box Association, headquartered in Itasca, IL. On one hand, growers want the unit to be durable, functional, protect the product and ship it efficiently. Meanwhile, retailers — everyone from box stores to traditional supermarkets — look for sustain- ability, cost effectiveness, attention-grabbing graphics and the ability to drive sales of what’s inside.
“Stores are looking for displays that are cost effective and graphics that can draw in customers, while still able to protect the product and ship efficiently,” says Erika Nist, in corporate compliance, sustainability and marketing for SeaCa Packaging/The Seattle Tacoma Box Company, headquartered in Kent,WA.
Here’s a sampling of the latest on the corrugated produce bin and box front:
1. GEORGIA-PACIFIC LLC
HUMMINGBIRD DIGITAL PRINT SOLUTION
Atlanta
The Hummingbird digital print solution pairs the company’s corrugated package engi- neering capabilities with wide-format digital print, according to Alexis Sarris, marketing manager. “The end result is a high-quality, digitally printed corrugated package that is easier and faster to produce, as well as cost-effective for a broader range of applica- tions such as bulk bins for produce.”
For example, Hummingbird worked with
PHOTO COURTESY OF SAMBRAILO
Savco, a Canadian-based produce market- er-distributor, to design and print a full-color, eye-catching bin for its H20 Melon brand. It was extremely well-received by Savco’s club customers. Stores that used to display no more than four to six bins of watermelons at a time are now assembling 18-bin displays of H20 Melon.
Savco is maximizing the flexibility of digital printing and working with Humming- bird to create new bin designs each season and going to market with multiple bin designs at a time. In the future, the company hopes to do even more with digital print, such as creating a design that is ‘built’ when multiple bins are displayed side by side and incorporating variable QR codes to facilitate GPS tagging.
2. FRUIT GROWERS SUPPLY CO.
SIX-COLOR PRINTING TECHNOLOGY Valencia,CA
The company recently developed a new grape box for the Moonlight Companies, a Reedley, CA-based stone fruit, grape and citrus grower. This new box was launched in October 2018. It was printed with the
56 / MARCH 2019 / PRODUCE BUSINESS