The label on perishable food pre-packs may be
extremely transient but, despite its short life, it is still required to
perform the key roles of providing both decoration for retail shelf ‘stand out’,
as well as a considerable amount of product data. Achieving these twin goals
can be challenging on small containers - but Harmony Fruit and Yoghurt
Desserts, developed by leading quality Swiss bakery and foods manufacturers
Jowa AG for major Swiss retail chain Migros, certainly prove that it can be
done.
The challenge
Harmony Fruit and Yoghurt Desserts are
premium-quality, single-service fresh products, with a shelf life of just four
days, packed in clear lidded PET pyramidical containers. They are offered in combinations
featuring four fresh fruits – apricot, pineapple, strawberry and raspberry -
and provide a delicious and healthy end to a meal. On the retail shelf, for
such products, the consumer needs to be able to view the contents; to verify –
via the label – the flavour offered; and read all the associated data -
nutritional information, ingredients, weight, and sell-by date, etc. Space,
however, is limited on the small, unusually-shaped Harmony containers.
A creative answer
Jowa’s Head of Packaging Development,
Christian Pfeiffer, knew he needed a special labelling solution, and challenged
specialist label printer Pago AG to deliver the answer. Pago is a regular label
print partner of Jowa, and has a particular expertise in the production of
self-adhesive leaflet/booklet labels. Says Fredy Schöb, Pago sales manager:
‘Our long experience with complex label shapes combined with booklet content
really helped us to develop a label for the Harmony desserts that delivered all
the content elements our client required and, at the same time, looked
attractive and clearly identified the flavour in the pot. As a bonus, because
the label also seals the pack lid - it additionally performs a valuable overt
tamper-evident function.’
Using a 60 micron gloss white self-adhesive
PP film as the base carrier for the FSC paper booklet, Pago prints the labels –
incorporating three double-sided pages -- by rotary letterpress in six colours using
low-migration inks, providing a double-perforated tear-off section as part of
the construction.Label content is printed in three languages – French, German,
and Italian. With the needs of plastics recycling in mind, the self-adhesive
label laminate also features a removable adhesive. Printed in typical runs of
50,000 labels per flavour, the Harmony labels are hand-applied by Jowa staff as
an integral part of their production and packaging process.
‘Real food appeal’
Christian Pfeiffer of Jowa is delighted with
the end result. ‘The labels have real food appeal’, he says, ‘and for the
consumer it’s easy to choose the preferred flavour, thanks to the colourful
picture of the different fruits. We chose Pago to print them because it has a
very good development department, and first-class printing equipment.’
Award-winning labels
The sets of labels for Harmony Fruit and
Yoghurt Desserts were also recently recognised by Finat, the European
self-adhesive label industry association, in their annual Label Awards
competition, where Pago was this year awarded the top prize in the marketing
and end-use category for booklet labels. Kurt Walker, President of FINAT,
comments: ‘Accommodating the increasing raft of textual content required by law
on a food label has meant that label printers today need to be ever more creative.
Pago has ably demonstrated that self-adhesive booklet labels can represent an
attractive and practical solution.’
Finat, founded in Paris in 1958, with
headquarters in The Hague (The Netherlands), is the worldwide association for
manufacturers of self-adhesive labels and related products and services. With 600
members in over 50 countries around the world, Finat has much to offer to label
converters and all suppliers to the labeling industry in terms of information
exchange and the opportunity to network internationally.
Jules Lejeune - FINAT
