13 Sep 2011 Clive’s Column July 2011
DOMAINE DE CANTON FRENCH GINGER LIQUEUR
At a recent trade show, held at the Lekgotla Restaurant in Nelson Mandela Square, under the auspices of Nicholson Smith Agencies for wine, liqueur and spirit stakeholders, I came across Domaine de Canton Ginger Liqueur, presented in a breath-taking and unusual Chinese-lantern bottle, made in France.
Legend has it the contents originate with the selection of the finest, baby Vietnamese ginger, peeled and cut by hand. It is then married with fine eau de vie, VSOP and XO Grande Champagne Cognacs, and blended with fresh Tahitian vanilla beans, Provençal honey and Tunisian ginseng to add vibrancy and dimension. To maintain the highest quality possible, Domain de Canton is handmade without preservatives or colorants.
NOLA’S NEW SALAD DRESSING RANGE
Nola’s new Salad Dressing range in a wave-design PET container, supplied by Mpact (formerly Mondi Plastics), Wadeville, is sure to create a tsunami at the tills. There are four variants – Yoghurt & Herb, Greek & Lemon Zest, Greek & Feta and Italian – to tempt you. Nola mayonnaise competes in a number of segments – including mayonnaise, dips, condiments and spreads – and salad dressing was a natural fit for the brand.
Using Cape Town-based Liquidlabs’ designs, Tadbik SA prints the shrink labels for the salad dressing containers which retain the easy-pour tamper-evident feature used on other Nola products.
KNORR FRESH IDEAS COOK-IN-BAGS
Before the advent of self-basting turkeys, cooking bags at Christmas time meant one thing – fewer dirty dishes to wash! As long as you follow the instructions on the packet, and don’t overload the cook-in-bag with veggies, or preheat your oven beyond 180ºC, the bag will stay intact and won’t tear!
Using graphic designs by The Hardy Boys, these Knorr Fresh Ideas cook-in-bags’ dual-compartment pouches are gravure printed by Nampak Flexible KZN, using inks from Eagle Inks. They are then pre-made at Nampak Flexible N’dabeni, before being supplied to Unilever.
I was consumed by the initial puppy-love excitement of handling and using the neatly wrapped roasting bag, imported from China, that’s packaged in the pouch. It was difficult not be impressed by their ingenuity, sheer compactness, and the inclusion of a blue plastic band to assist with tying the bags before cooking.
PIET ESTERHUYSE’S OPPIGRENS BROEDERY
Piet Esterhuyse, from Oppigrens Broerery, always purchased generic cartons for his tomatoes and peppers but, over the years, there were several instances of these hand-erected cartons collapsing during the rigours of distribution.
Mpact Corrugated (formerly Mondipak), Springs, suggested that Piet change to a fully-erected carton in a strengthened B-flute, open-top, stackable carton to eliminate intensive labour requirements and to free up resources. A carton-erecting machine was installed at Waterpoort, Limpopo, to service the entire agricultural community.
Initially, a plain carton was developed to test logistics for supplying erected cartons to this isolated area. After various transit tests, using different board specifications, a B-flute combination was chosen regardless of fears from skeptics that only EB double-wall board would suffice. The successful transition to machine-erected cartons then sowed the seeds for high-impact, appetite- appealing graphic finishes
First published in PACKAGiNG & Print Media, July 2011.
About Clive Glover
After many years in FMCG sales and marketing, and later in packaging as marketing manager of Kohler Plastics and then Kohler Flexibles, Clive formed his own packaging consulting company in 2000. He also started writing articles for various packaging magazines, and purchased his first digital camera to support his articles. Two weeks later was given his first professional photography assignment – and the rest is history.
Clive is now first-choice photographer for many FMCG and packaging companies as he has the valuable knack of working digital magic in the specialised area of pack photograpy.
Clive’s Column appears every month in PACKAGiNG & Print Media Magazine and covers new packs on shelf in SA.