They've Got The Look (And More)
When it comes to store brand products, quality is king. However, product quality goes only so far in making the sale; retailers need to make sure packaging pops on shelves, communicates content quality and functions properly if they want to ensure sales of own-brand goods.
In our second annual Store Brand Packaging Awards competition, Private Label ⇒ Store Brands is thrilled to honor 14 retail companies and their respective packaging-design partners for new private label packaging that is truly innovative.
We received approximately 150 entries representing more than 400 SKUs. To avoid the potential for bias, we sought experts from outside the packaging design industry to serve on our judging panel. Our judges — editors of UBM Canon's Packaging Digest magazine — include Lisa Pierce, executive editor; Rick Lingle, technical editor; and Jack Mans, plant operations editor.
We divided the entries into five categories: Shelf-Stable Foods, Refrigerated and Frozen Foods, Beverages, Non-Foods and New Line or Line Extension Across Multiple Categories. We then instructed the judges to evaluate each entry within a category on three criteria: overall appearance, functionality and communication of the product message. They were told to weigh each criterion equally.
Finally, the judges selected a Gold, Silver and Bronze Award winner within each category. They also honored one overall standout across the categories with the "Best of the Bunch" Award.
Best of the Bunch Award
Western Family Classics Limited Edition Ice Cream
Retail company: Overwaitea Food Group, Langley, British Columbia
Packaging design company: RKW Communications Inc., Delta, British Columbia
The judges weigh in:
"What I like about this is … the richness of the black and the way that the black background makes the main colored graphic really pop off the package," Pierce explains. "[I also like] the splitting of the graphic into two, [which connects the product] with the flavor. So for example, in the Candy Cane flavor, half of that image is a Christmas ornament, which immediately calls to mind candy canes because that's when you see a lot of candy canes — at Christmastime. And lou see the other half of the scoop, quality of the product inside."
"This is an elegant-looking ice cream container with a matching lid that's also in-mold labeled," Lingle notes. "[And] I don't know how common this is, but it looks like they've gone to an integrated tamper-evident feature [in the lid], so it doesn't require [a] shrink band."
"They're using gold ink for [other content on the packaging], which, again, imparts that elegant feel to it," Pierce adds. "Oh, and you can recycle this. … [and it] says it's dishwasher-safe for the top rack, so … there's also a potential reusable feature to it for consumers who are thus inclined."
"It just gets better and better," Lingle says.