In the second part of FoodProductionDaily’s special edition on dry food packaging, manufacturers of Farin’ up flour and Vero chocolate reveal the drivers behind the packaging concepts and the production challenges they had to overcome.
Adapting the product to the packaging
Brand: Farin' Up
Company: Moulins de Kleinbettingen, France
Category: Bakery
Sub category: Baking ingredients & mixes
Launch Type: New product
Product: Lump Free Wheat Flour
Package Type: Flexible stand-up pouch
Closure Material: Plastic
Package Width (mm): 145 mm (5.71 inches )
Package Height (mm): 195 mm (7.68 inches )
Packaging Description: Pouch with an injection moulded cap.
Markets available: The product has been launched in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and is about to be introduced to Germany.
Mintel product description: New under the Farin' Up brand is Farine Fluide Sans Grumeaux (Lump Free Wheat Flour).
The product retails in a 750g resealable pack that offers precise pouring, is waterproof and easy to dispose of.
Material: A mix of PE (polyethylene) and PET (polyethylene terephthalate)
Packaging type: Doypack
A spokesperson from Moulins de Kleinbettingen said:
What’s innovative about the product? As far as we know it’s the only packaging of this kind for flour.
Adapting the product to the packaging: Designed together with Pack Solutions, the packaging was originally launched two to three years ago for the sugar market. Pack Solutions then came to our company and asked if we wanted to do this in flour.
The packaging had to be adapted to cater for the flour product. One of the first challenges to be met whilst designing the packaging was the size of the spout which had to be made bigger.
More unusually, the product itself had to be adapted to fit the packaging. We had to develop a new type of finer flour so that it could flow optimally out of the pack. This was achieved by using an extra/additional sieving technique (compared to main-stream flour), which is used to make the flour grains finer.
The fine flour sold in this particular type of packaging is very good for fine pastry, pancakes, but not especially good for bread flour, as this type of flour only contains the center (endosperm) of the grain.
Sustainability challenges: If you want a practical product you need to sacrifice sustainability. Unfortunately, there is no credible alternative today, but a lot of progress is being made in this domain and we are confident that we will be able to offer our products in biodegradable packaging in the coming years.
Moulins is working on making the packaging more sustainable. We’re trying to find a plastic which is 100 per cent biodegradable but an affordable alternative has not been developed yet.
Transparent: This is a good packaging product for flour as it’s transparent, therefore the flour can be seen by the customer to assess its quality.
Control over quantity: One of the product’s main assets is the spout, which enables the customer to pour the exact quantity of flour that they require. With traditional packets you get flour everywhere, this packaging offers control for the consumer for a type of flour that is used in fairly small quantities.
Customer feedback: We’ve had a lot of positive feedback from all ages, a group of customers aged around 80 years old told us they’d been waiting 60 years for this type of product!
The future: Moulin is currently developing designs for Bioflour and couscous which could be ready by the end of the year or early 2012.
Vacuum packed chocolate bar
Brand: Costruttori di Dolcezze Vero
Company: Costruttori di Dolcezze
Category: Chocolate confectionery
Sub category: Chocolate tablets
Product: Dark and milk chocolate
Launch Type: New product
Package Type: Flexible sachet
Package Material: Multi laminate
Package Width (mm): 96 mm (3.78 inches )
Package Height (mm): 223 mm (8.78 inches )
Packaging description: Sachet has notches to tear it open
Markets available: The product is currently available in Italy, but it is also sold in some European countries.
Mintel product description:
Costruttori di Dolcezze Vero Il Primo Cioccolato Sottovuoto (Vacuum Packed Chocolate) is said to be the first chocolate in a vacuum-pack.
The product is available in a Latte (milk) variety and retails in a 75g pack.
President of Costruttori di Dolcezze Eugenio Guarducci said:
What’s innovative? It’s a simple packaging system for chocolate that no one has thought of before.
Higher cost: The start up involved for this type of packaging is more expensive, but the high quality of product justifies the higher cost.
Benefits of vacuum packed chocolate: The packaging prolongs the product’s shelf life and level of quality, maintaining the chocolate’s fragrance flavour and its organoleptic features.
The vacuum pack does this by protecting the chocolate from sudden changes in temperature, light and other odors.
Success: Vero has been successful in the market, not only because of the high quality of the chocolate, but particularly due to the new packaging, which has had a positive impact on product sales.