Helping small drinks businesses grow with retail packaging

When Dalston's Soda Company experienced substantial growth throughout lockdown, it entered a new and exciting chapter and hit the shelves of supermarket giants Waitrose.

Smurfit Kappa’s Barnstaple team was on hand to ensure it had powerful packaging solutions to show competing, bigger brands that Dalston’s can hold its own on supermarket shelves.

Having previously developed Dalston’s seltzer eCommerce packaging, the multipack retail packaging presented another exciting challenge to Smurfit Kappa, who had to ‘hit the ground running’ to create stand-out, colourful packaging that had a premium feel Not only did Dalston’s need packaging ready to send its multipacks to Waitrose, but the brief also included the design of ten bespoke boxes for a stop motion animation for an advertisement - in just four days!

Previously Dalstons had mainly used two-colour flexographic print for its multipack packaging The new packaging needed to be striking, establish and reinforce brand awareness and incorporate the company ’ s musical heritage with the vinyl record player featured on the multipack boxes

So, as the new packaging would showcase a range of unique flavours, it was agreed that a full six-colour lithographic print option would yield the striking results they were looking for. The multipack packaging needed to be assembled quickly in Dalston’s fulfilment centre as they would be hand-assembled there The company also wanted to make sure no secondary packaging materials were needed, so getting their input was incredibly important.

This is where Smurfit Kappa’s 80 years of supporting small and growing businesses helped to provide a seamless solution both for the fulfilment centre

Diet soft drinks quality control

In light of new challenges facing soft drink manufacturers – including the move to supplant unhealthy industrial sugar in non-alcoholic beverages with low-calorie sweeteners – Anton Paar, a market leader in beverage analysis solutions, has released a new Packaged Beverage Analyzer (PBA 5001 Soft Drink Diet). All key parameters (e.g., °Brix, CO2, %Diet) are measured with the same system and in one measuring cycle.

For anyone still using the complex molybdenum blue or titration methods for diet drink analysis, Anton Paar’s new beverage analysing system can help. It is easily adjusted and operated, meaning anyone can perform highly accurate measurements without special training

A reference for %Diet measurements is only set at the beginning of a batch production, which reduces the demand for reference analysis by 75% and saves users money on costly chemicals and consumables Just press the start button and move onto other tasks: Depending on the configuration, it takes the system three to six minutes for a measurement, which enables a quick batch release Conducting a highly precise density measurement of process water and a diet sample with a DMA density meter sets the basis for a reliable, accurate %Diet determination The density value is not only the most reliable parameter for %Diet analysis, it also forms the perfect basis for volume determination and therefore filling volume control Anton Paar has more than 50 years of experience in digital density measurement and is a global market leader in this field as well

Sample preparation is not required – the final package is simply placed in the filling device, and the sample is automatically transferred Since there is automatic filling error detection in the density and CO2 meters, users can be confident that their sample filling has been done correctly. Anton Paar offers a three-year standard warranty on the whole measuring system, and its global service network ensures the measurement system is always running effectively info gb@anton-paar com and the customer. The retail packaging is frustration-free for the end user as well as easily disposed of in normal household recycling

In order to centralise data storage, the system can be combined with AP Connect, Anton Paar’s lab execution software, which enables data access from any network computer If there are Anton Paar inline sensors installed in a factory’s lines, the Davis 5 software links lab and process equipment, and automatically adjusts inline sensors without human interaction.

Dalston's branding is vibrant, punchy and bright and its advertising conveys this perfectly Smurfit Kappa was delighted to be able to support the campaign launching the new multipacks into Waitrose, and producing the ten bespoke boxes that were to be used in an animation that would be shared across their social media channels

Andrew Richards from Smurfit Kappa Barnstaple, said, “We had just four days to produce the 10 packs for Dalston’s animation, which proved an exciting challenge for the team We promised packs in four days and so, four days later, the packs were ready to shine at the client’s animation shoot!” smurfitkappa.com