03.06.09
Kermit W. Highfield, vice president for business development of Consumer Products Corporation, Louisville, KY, USA, says that the company had been importing and distributing olive oil from Spain, Italy and Turkey for years. Their clients are food service companies, restaurants and various foodstuff manufacturers. While Consumer Products offered a line of sauces and barbeque items, the proliferation of olive oil in the marketplace was keeping pace with sales growth.
"Since there were little distinct differences in the quality of the various olive oils, we took a hard look at bringing to market a quality oil with the addition of Omega 3, in the form of a lemon-flavored fish oil," Highfield says. In describing the challenge of adding fish oil to olive oil without making the entire product "fishy" tasting, Highfield likened it to "putting a single drop of fish oil on a lollipop no matter how it's spread around, it still tastes fishy!"
Through significant research in cooperation with overseas companies, Consumer Products found a lemon flavored fish oil product in Spain that could be blended with olive oil, then bottled, labeled and shipped to the US. The product was accepted eagerly by food buyers and wholesale clients at food shows. Highfield says, "Since one of our key product differentiators was a heat shrink label, the addition of Omega 3 lemon flavored fish oil was a real winner." And thus Esencial-Plus was born.
After numerous trials in Spain, Consumer Products' olive oil exporter was prepared to provide the complete package, including the application of the shrink sleeve. By this point, Consumer Products had already presented the newly labeled product to major customers, including Kroger and Target, when the bombshell that hit caused a real scramble. The exporter had a shift in management and wanted to eliminate the heat shrink process in its plant. "At the time, we were not a huge percentage of the Spanish company's output," Highfield says, "but they did say they would work with us to resolve the dilemma."
Plan B, according to Highfield, "was to bottle the product in Spain, since they had a very efficient bottling line as well as access to the popular 750ml glass bottle, which is the industry standard." He added that "glass bottles have the same importance in the olive oil business as they do in wines it is a perceived quality issue, that high quality isn't bottled in plastic PVC. So all of a sudden, we had to find a domestic supplier of high quality, heat shrink sleeve labels. The more we reviewed the quality of sleeves that were available, the smaller our eligible list of suppliers became," he says, "and when we added service and technical ability to the equation, we had whittled our list down to one."
Innovative Labeling Solutions (ILS Labels) of Hamilton, OH, USA, was the candidate still standing, and in Highfield's words, "They could do our packaging the way we wanted it from a quality standpoint, and they have only gotten better and better with the colors over time." Another plus for ILS has been its assistance in terms of artwork and its ability to tweak the product without requiring a time-costing major redesign. "They started out with great service," says Highfield, "and have provided additional value that is immeasurable."
Highfield emphasized an aspect of ILS' service to make his point. "We got a couple of phone calls one day from our sales people, saying they were in a major retailer's stores and the label didn't look like it did when we first showed the customer." This turned out to be the result of the difference between conference room lighting, where the product looked great, to the store lighting, causing the label to look a bit faded or dim.
"We knew what we wanted to do to fix the problem," says Highfield, "and we were going to go back to the original graphics designer, when ILS told us that they could make the change and do it really quickly. And they did." He adds, "We gave the original graphics designer our vision of what the overall package should look like and we got a great design. Then ILS enhanced things more hits of white to make the artwork pop and really stand out from competitive bottles on the shelf."
Another example of ILS service was when Highfield needed to make some last minute changes to the copy. Innovative Labeling Solutions told him they had an in-house art department with several graphics artists on staff and that they could make changes on the fly. They did so, and Esencial-Plus with Omega 3 kept right on rolling off the Consumer Products production labeling line.
Innovative Labeling Solutions is a digital packaging specialist, offering comprehensive printing and finishing services for prime labels, flexible packaging, shrink sleeves and folding cartons. "Working on this project with Consumer Products Corporation was very rewarding," says Eric Knop, director of business development at ILS. "By offering our technical expertise, beyond just the printing of the sleeve, we were able to improve the quality of the graphic output to be vibrant and clear as was the original design intent."
Knop adds, "Printing on clear film can be challenging, and when graphics designers don't understand these nuances, sometimes the production graphics fall short. Upon our first evaluation of the artwork, we noted that we could make some improvements to the way the file was built, coupled with additional hits of white to maximize opacity and make the graphics really pop."
Comparing olive oil to fine wine may be a stretch to some, but when you consider that a two-bottle set of 750ml extra virgin French olive oil sells on Amazon.com at $98, or the top of the line special Manni Tuscan oil at $283 for ten 3.4 oz bottles (minimum order but includes shipping from Italy), you get a good idea of where the upper end of the market is heading. And what does this really mean? Label graphics are critically important, and as olive oils become more and more popular, the need for high class labels that reflect the quality of the product inside the bottle will be the way to elevate the product from the competition.
For a quick look at the Consumer Products Escencial Omega 3 enhanced olive oil story, go to www.Escencial-Plus.com.