Great Northern to Highlight Club Store Packaging Expertise at Pack Expo
APPLETON, WI—September 24, 2012—Great Northern will showcase its packaging expertise for club stores at this year’s PackExpo International, Oct. 28-31, 2012, at McCormick Place, in Chicago.
Great Northern, headquartered in Appleton, WI, will showcase the award-winning capabilities of its StrataGraph® brand of creative packaging solutions for club store environments. On display in Booth 5727 will be the packaging Great Northern recently created for Kellogg’s Special K® Pastry Crisps.
Great Northern also is offering complementary admission to a limited number of expo attendees. Go to www.packexpo.com, click on Register Now and proceed with the online registration process. In the Registration Type section toward the end of the form, enter Great Northern’s complementary code—35B35—and the registration fee will be waived prior to checkout.
In developing the package for its Special K Pastry Crisps, Kellogg required a fresh design that would replace previous packaging consisting of four chipboard packages in an E-flute master with a single high-impact solution. Other requirements included: engineer the substrate to perform on an automated packaging line utilizing existing forming and closure equipment; achieve sustainability improvements; and deliver cost efficiencies.
“Our StrataGraph operation was well-suited for the task, combining high-quality graphics capabilities with an inline web process that eliminates production steps and delivers significant cost-to-market efficiencies,” said Brian Fiebig, Great Northern’s vice president, marketing. “The high-speed operation incorporates quick-drying UV printing, coating, laminating, diecutting and stripping in one continuous process.”
Great Northern’s package for Kellogg’s Special K Pastry Crisps used a 10-point SBS printed top sheet with a 30-point virgin kraft base sheet to provide the highest quality print surface and the structural strength needed to protect the one-piece primary pack throughout the supply chain. The web-based process achieved run-speed efficiencies, quick turn around and cost reduction, which allowed the customer to achieve stronger channel penetration for the brand. The UV coating offered superior rub resistance while the custom-formulated low-slip, high-gloss coating increased the pallet load stability.
Scoring and cut/crease profiles in the die-cutting process were engineered to minimize cracking and provide sufficient flexibility to enable ease of forming on Kellogg’s automated packaging equipment. The master pack holds 60 two-bar packages and features a perforated front panel for easy access and reclosing at home.
“We also were able to deliver sustainability improvements over previous packaging,” said Fiebig, citing:
- a reduction of materials with one-piece construction versus primary packages in a master carton,
- reduced greenhouse gas emissions and energy usage in the manufacturing process and
- reduced transportation fuel with more inbound units per pallet and per truckload.
Retail-Ready Packaging
In addition to the Kellogg’s club store packaging, Great Northern will be showcasing the Retail Ready Package (RRP) it created for Reichel Foods Dippin’ Stix™—single-serving trays with sticks of fruits, vegetables and chips packaged with complementary dips.
Previously, Reichel Foods delivered its healthy snack product lines to retailers inside standard C flute RSC boxes. Reichel now uses a StrataGraph retail-ready package for its Dippin’ Stix packs, which arrive at retailers on pallets with no master cartons. Utilizing 36-point StrataGraph material with impactful graphics, the boxes have perforated tops that remove quickly and cleanly, leaving the single-serve packs standing upright on a branded tray for easy consumer access on the shelf or at home.
“The StrataGraph laminated paperboard product fills the marketplace gap between folding cartons that can underperform in the supply chain and corrugated packaging that is sometimes over-engineered,” said Fiebig. “StrataGraph performs well in sustainability score-carding, and our in-line process delivers lower run costs that make frequent graphic changes more affordable for regional or small runs.”
About Great Northern
Great Northern designs, manufactures and distributes packaging solutions and point-of-sale display programs for industrial, commercial and retail products. Its operations include: consumer packaging and display, temporary and permanent displays, point-of-sale packaging and fulfillment services; commercial packaging, corrugated and custom packaging; Laminations VBoard® edge protection; and Rollguard protective packaging systems for rolled and cylindrical products. Headquartered in Appleton, WI, Great Northern has more than 1,000 employees, operations in seven states and has been in business for 50 years.
Source: Great Northern.
