Shoppers in Canada are seeing a new shape when they reach for a milk carton. Reid’s Dairy of Belleville, Ontario, is the first processor in North America to package milk in 250-milliter mini Diamond™ cartons, a new Pure-Pak® carton produced by Elopak Canada Inc.

The mini Diamond carton goes a step beyond the familiar gable-top package, adding unique curved top and side panels that provide more merchandising area and help the package stand out on the shelf. The design also accommodates a larger screw cap for pouring convenience. The new carton is available exclusively from Elopak.

“As an independently run company, we need to be different from our competitors and stand out by being one step ahead,” says Stephen Quickert, president of Reid’s Dairy. “The innovative Diamond shape, married to the quality print process provided by Elopak in Montreal, helped us create the right image with new branding that enhances the Reid’s identity.”

This branding features curved red panels to match the familiar Reid’s Dairy banner and high-quality photographs of active youngsters with splashing milk for even more consumer appeal. The graphics retain the dairy’s “Shaker the Cow” character and the castle turret that identifies the plant to everyone in the Belleville community and the surrounding area.

One reason for the dairy’s switch to the new mini Diamond for skim, 2%, 1% and chocolate milk was the successful launch of its Reid’s Naturals premium juices and drinks in another new Elopak carton, the Pure-Pak® Curve™. The Curve features the same curved fifth panel down the side and the traditional gable-top shape on top. The Reid’s Naturals line debuted last June with orange juice, apple juice, iced tea and lemonade.

The two-liter Curve™ cartons with high-quality printing created a much more upscale image than the 4-liter bags commonly used in Ontario,” says David Franks, Reid’s Dairy plant manager. The juice launch, the technology investment that preceded it and the new packaging are all part of a growth strategy for Reid’s Dairy, the largest independent dairy in Ontario.

A fixture in Belleville for more than 40 years, the company was acquired in the 1960s by Arthur Quickert, a German immigrant whose grandsons, Stephen and David, run the business today. The company also operates 24 Reid’s Dairy stores in eastern and south central Ontario.

Elopak can produce the Curve and Diamond cartons in sizes from half-pints to half-gallons (236 milliliter to 2-liter), standard and mini cross-sections, with or without a screw cap. Both standard flexographic and enhanced flexographic printing are available.

Most filling machines can be converted to run both the Curve and standard gable-top cartons. Reid’s Dairy is using a Pure-Pak P-M30 filler, which has an output of 3,000 mini cartons per hour, and a Pure-Pak P-H27 filler, with an output of 2,700 half-gallon (two-liter) cartons per hour.

Elopak Inc. is the North American business unit of the Elopak Group, a leading global supplier of packaging systems for non-carbonated liquid food products with customers in more than 100 countries. The company is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2007. Best known for its Pure-Pak gable-top cartons and fillers, Elopak also supplies caps and materials handling equipment. — Elopak Inc., 30000 S. Hill Road, New Hudson, Mich., 48165, phone: (248) 486-4600, fax: (248) 486-4601, Web site: www.elopak.com