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Contemporary Contour
Reid’s Dairy stands out with new Diamond™ cartons from Elopak Canada.
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
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