Packaging is absolutely a key motivator for food and beverage purchases. The visual-appetite connection is one that is visceral, and savvy food markets have known this for decades. In promotional products, manufacturers have the additional challenge of overall presentation plus the promotional message. Here’s how promotional food and beverage packaging can work for you – and your clients.
“Packaging is the first thing the customer sees,” says Strong of Chocolate Chocolate. “Cheap packaging paints a picture as to the quality of what is inside. We have invested six-figure amounts this year to have the ability to print six-color process on our boxes as the demand is pushing for bigger and better while promoting the giver at all times.”
“We are taking customization to a new level this year,” he says. “For example, a lawyer could give a beautiful six-color printed box that is individualized down to each recipient. Or building management companies could have a personalized product for each tenant, no two alike.”
First impressions are important, aggress Freuler of Taylor & Grant, and when someone receives one of the company’s signature Studio Gift Towers or its Death by Chocolate gift basket, it makes an immediate statement about the person or company giving the gift. “We constantly create innovative packaging ideas that have an after use,” she notes. “One of the three R’s is reuse, so in addition to finding unique, new ways to package our treats, we ask ourselves; could it be used again? This dramatically increases number of impressions, and therefore is a strong sales incentive for the distributor.”
Freuler adds that most gift items offer many color options from the package, to the ribbon and finally the imprint. Taylor & Grant’s “Build Your Own Masterpiece Program” allows distributors to build a gift tower specifically geared towards their clients tastes and budget.
Each gourmet delicacy offered by Fresh Beginnings is individually packaged, enclosed in a protective seal, and then placed in a canister lined with decorative wrap, protected by bubble pack and enclosed with an airtight seal. This ensures maximum freshness and products are delivered intact, not broken, says Fox.
There are several ways Fresh Beginnings canisters can be utilized for promotions. The company offers many stock design canisters that can be sent with or without an imprint. Also available is a four-color process that offers flexibility. For example, four-color process art can be placed on a white canister lid, but the distributor client can choose a variety of canister bottoms that delivers a beautiful presentation to the recipient. This process also allows companies to send a photograph and use the holiday canister as a yearly commemorative one.
When people start their days with truly delicious, rich coffee, all sorts of wonders are possible. Your client’s logo and name will then have a positive connotation in the target recipient’s mind. Richard’s Gourmet provides its coffee in fully customized packaging. Salzman says his company actually prints the entire surface of the coffee bag for a complete custom wrapped design.
Because food and candy are consumed, the packaging and any customization of the actual food “is critical,” asserts Janowski of A La Carte, which makes custom molded chocolate, imprinted gumballs, jaw breakers and Sprees and custom-molded gummies. The company also produces individual candies with imprinted wrappers, imprinted cello bags of candy and a wide variety of tins, jars, boxes and bottles that are imprinted. “The most effective promotions designed by distributors combine the packaging with the food so that the promotion or gift creates a very powerful message,” he says.
One distributor combined the client’s holiday gift with a promotional vehicle by designing a glass jar with the client’s logo filled with a mix of chocolates that were imprinted with the client’s major brands so that the recipient not only received a great looking and tasting gift, but was exposed to the client’s line of products.
Sweet Nut Trees has designed a series of wooden collectables that not only delivered a fine food gift, but will long adorn the desk or shelf of the recipient. This line of collectibles is geared towards the construction, distribution, equipment and warehousing industries, says Robbins. The line of wooden collectibles can be laser engraved, while tins, gift boxes and glassware can be screen printed. Personalized gift cards are also available on any item.
Similarly, Dancing Deer shaker wooden boxes are “elegant yet whimsical, simple and distinguished,” O’Keefe explains. “Gussied up is out. Artful is in.” The company offers customization on its shaker boxes, as well as custom ribbon, custom gift cards and custom labels.
Chocolate Inn, says Miller, has revamped its packaging for the chocolate products in its new catalog; the packaging now has a more upscale look for a higher perceived value, he says. For example, all gift boxes have a cloggy black bottom and either a coppery-gold or black-silver foiled lid. Boxes are tied with a matching black/gold or black/silver ribbon plus a complimentary gift card tied to the ribbon. All packaging can be foil stamped with the client logo or message.
In 1979, Maple Ridge Farms started packaging all of its gourmet foods in wooden collector’s boxes on which it branded the client’s logo, says Riordan. The next year it added hardwood cutting boards branded with the client’s logo. Maple Ridge Farms also added logo-customized desk accessories, jelly bean dispensers, a variety of gift boxes and towers, and a line of collectible wooden trucks, all bearing the client’s logo.
For example, “we create many gift baskets using foods from a particular city, region or country,” says Riordan. “To help promote an incentive trip to France, we created a basket with nine different foods from France, a French guide book, a corkscrew and two wine glasses. We also do many customized gifts where the distributor sends us an assortment of promotional products to include in each gift”
