At Berry Global, we cultivate innovative packaging with a user-centric mindset and shared goal for a happy end customer. As we evolve – designing and developing new products, improving processes, enhancing our technology, and much more – our focus remains constant: our customers. Litehouse, Inc., a leader in refrigerated dips, dressings, and other tasty products, came to us in November of 2019 with an objective for a refreshed packaging solution. Equipped with a distinct vision of this bottle and our comprehensive range of resources, this teamwork formula brought a new package design to life.
The Litehouse team had a plan to remarket their OPA by Litehouse brand, to a new brand called Purely Balanced. They take pride in the ingredients they used to create Purely Balanced and wanted a packaging solution that was just as great. The needed packaging shift from their original 11.25 oz. glass bottle was two-fold: meeting end consumer convenience, while also taking a sustainable step forward. According to insights delivered by our partners at Litehouse, some attributes of their Purely Balanced consumer include a health-conscious individual with clean eating habits, is adventurous when shopping, favors on-the-go convenience and reads labels. While keeping in mind these parameters and the scope of the project, we proposed our in-house packaging design studio, Blue Clover Studios, create a custom bottle solution made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) resin. PET is a desirable resin for mechanical recycling, and it has high recycling access.
After preliminary conversation, members of the Litehouse team, Graphic Design Lead Kathy Weisz, and Krystle Turnbull, Litehouse Product Manager, made their way to Blue Clover Studios at our global headquarters in Evansville, Indiana. Their two days in Evansville consisted of hours packed with concept exploration, preliminary engineering development, and rapid prototyping. Prior research completed by Litehouse and resources available at the HQ helped move the innovation process along quickly and hit project milestones in a timely manner. To avoid additional production costs and follow suit with the current manufacturing process, ideally Litehouse wanted to create a bottle that paired with their existing flip-top closure, which would stand out on the shelf and would run efficiently on their filling equipment. Scott Fisher, Design Innovation Director at Blue Clover Studios, stated, "We facilitate our workshops for two primary reasons: reduce time to market by expediting the development process and bring key stakeholders from customer and manufacturer to the table for collaboration of something truly meaningful, functional, beautiful, and manufacturable." Following a selection of four bottle concepts that aligned well with the project scope, rapid prototypes were taken back to Sandpoint, Idaho for the rest of the Litehouse team to evaluate. "Having physical prototypes to scale allowed us to quickly evaluate and discuss amongst our various internal teams, from Engineering to our Leadership team, to narrow our selection and maintain our timeline,” Turnbull says.
After a year plus of development and commitment to innovation, this partnership took Litehouse’s custom bottle concept to commercialization with our 38mm flip-top closure produced at our Libertyville, Illinois plant. The successful custom bottle design for Litehouse was created with a 38/400 neck finish at our Princeton, Indiana plant. Turnbull says, "So far, we’ve received positive feedback on the overall bottle design internally and with the trade. We’re confident the custom bottle created with the Blue Clover team is the perfect convenient solution for our Purely Balanced consumer as well. It’s truly been an exciting journey to see this project through from the initial brainstorm session with the Blue Clover team to launching into market.”
Contact Blue Clover Studios for your next packaging innovation.