On Press Again

I was at a paperboard company last week, on press to approve a box re-run for a client. It was especially critical because the first run had been rejected due to gross color variation. Why was it rejected? Because someone at the printing company miss-handled the WIP and shipped set-up material to the client. (This printer uses "set-up" material to get their die-cutter in registration.) When the item went into production, the packaging looked terrible and the entire job was returned to the printer for credit. 

While the job itself was not especially challenging, there were some things working against us from the start. There was a warm red and two special blacks used on these three items. The warm red on the proof was a build using 100% process M & Y.

1. The tone of the warm red was off giving the proof a blue cast.

2. The special blacks were not well-defined by the client. The way they were separated was not the way I would have done it, but it was already on-press.

3. Two of the items were running on different presses at the same time. 

4. The paperboard stock on press was not from the same mill as the proof. In this case the surface texture was way different. 

I decided that as a strategy we would get one up and running first on the older press and then match the second item to it on the newer, better press. I had to determine that we were not going to run a "special" magenta. Running special colors in the process stations can create as many problems as it solves. This practice is not that uncommon such as swapping out cyan for pro-blue, but when playing in the reds this can throw off the whole balance of the job. Plus; there were some process elements on this job that would be affected.

It took seven pulls to get it acceptable once we determined that the red wasn't going to get any better and the mottling wasn't going away on the black due to stock. On the other press, we got the color into the OK zone on the second pull. The third item was a quick changeover with a reset of the ink densities. 

If you are a printer, make sure you have a system set up that prevents shipping sub-quality material to your customer. When I was at CCL Label many years ago, one of our new CS agents sent labels they literally took out of a dumpster to the buyer at Clairol. The next day we almost lost that account. If you can't avoid setting up on the actual job, then quarantine it or have a quality agent approve the material. This stuff might seem like 101 to you, but the folks on the line may not have their head in the game.

On the artwork side, I am not 100% clear that the design firm, the client and the printer were in alignment as to how these jobs were going to print. Having this alignment would be beneficial to everyone in order to manage expectations. 

Fortunately, our client was happy with the job and hopefully the printer will remember this experence on future runs. . .    Have you ever had similar issues?

InnoBev US Beverage Entrepreneur Forum

On Thursday June 19th I spent the day in NYC attending the most important beverage conference of the 2008 in my opinion. The forum, held at the Le Parker Meridien Hotel, attracted ~200 serious business executives from around the world. The conference was put on by Zenith International and BevNet in association with Beverage Spectrum and Beverage Innovation Magazines. The Forum was also sponsored by Wild Flavors, Inc.

Download the full schedule for the day here.

Highlights for me included Peter van Stolk, former CEO and founder of Jones Soda Company talking about effective on-line strategies and how to target your audience. Peter is now the CEO of the Tree Fort Group, a marketing consulting firm.

Greg Steltenpohl, founder of Odwalla Inc. talked about his struggles of marketing a fresh squeezed product (with a three-day shelf life!) during the formative years and showed us many pictures of "Hippies"(his words) bottling and distributing his products on the west coast. He now runs Adena World Beat Beverages.

After lunch there was an innovator panel made up of beverage industry entreprenuers;

Bill Sipper - Senior Partner of Cascadia Consulting Group LLC

Mike Weinstein - CEO of Inov8 LLC

Tom First - CEO of O Water

James S Tonkin of Tonkin Consulting (link please)

Dr. Erik DonHowe, VP of Wild Flavors, Inc.

Each member of the panel spent 5-10 minutes talking about their unique experience and then took questions from the audience.

One of the most interesting parts of the day was the "Dragons Den" where three beverage executives got to pitch their young brands to a panel made up of major industry distributors. The distributors then had a moment to comment on each pitch and give advice.

The beverage executives were: 

Dr. Dan Ratner of Cell-Nique

TJ McIntyre, Founder and President of Pixie Maté

Brad Winter, CEO of SoNu Beverages

The beverage panelists were: 

Lewis Hershkowitz - COO of Big Geyser Inc.

Ken Davis, CFO of the Davis Beverage Group (link requested) 

Gerry Martin, VP of Marketing for Polar Beverages

Tim Sperry, President of The Sperry Group (link requested)

The process was very insightful. I applaud the three passionate officers & founders who stood in front of 200 or so people and told their story. It took fortitude and I am sure we will all be hearing more from these brands.

Finally there were some marketing briefs given about emerging growth opportunities, consumer trends and steps for securing finance. There was also plenty of new and unusual beverages to sample. If you are at all involved with the beverage industry, it would be wise to attend the InnoBev US forum next year. Make sure you log into BevNet to find out when the next one is. 

The best part of the evening for me was right at the end during cocktail hour where I had a chance to meet and talk with some of the beverage inventors and creative people. I also had the unique opportunity to watch Dr. Tzohar make "Diamond Water" or carbonated water from diamonds. This patented process involves placing a small diamond that has been heated to 2000° with a small torch into a vial of liquid oxygen.

The diamond then glows like a bright light for a minute or two and then vaporizes into carbon dioxide. The resulting gas is vented into a container of water. The Dr. claims that the resulting beverage is safe to drink. Video. The evening ended with a toast and a glass of diamond water which is the appropriate way to end a beverage entrepreneur forum. . . 

OI Glass University

Last week I attended the three day Glass University given by OI in Perrysburg, Ohio. This class is given four times a year. If you are at all involved with the purchasing of or creation of glass packaging, I highly recommend this class. 

 The first two days are all classroom, and the third day are spent visiting their glass plant in Charlotte, MI.

I learned that glass in this country, is grossly under-recycled and according to OI, for every 10% of recycled glass that makes it back into the furnace, energy use drops 2-3%. This is important because the furnaces run at about 2800° 24 hours a day, seven days a week!

During the glass they reviewed new Product development, Sustainability issues, Raw Materials & Furnace Operations, the Forming Process, Surface treatments, strength, inspection and Handling requirements. Alot of materials for three days. 

Glass does certainly have weight, breakage and other issues, but the purity of glass and its unique ability to protect the product and not impart any flavors into the product can not be ignored. Also - Glass is still #1 in premium perception with consumers. I see glass coming back in a big way and the folks in Charlotte are very proud of their newly designed glass baby bottle in that will be hitting the market soon.

The only thing I would have liked is more time at the factory. They took us to the furnaces, allowed us to look inside (through a welding mask), then the glass forming machines and right down the line right to the end where they ship product. Here is a video from the Discovery Channel showing a quick overview of the glass making process. (Not sure if it is an OI location)

If you have any interest in attending the OI Glass school contact Karen.Harwood@us.o-i.com

Why Brand Managers shouldn't go on press. . .

In my 14 years working first as an art director for CCL label, and then as packaging manager for Snapple Beverage Group/Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages (now called Dr Pepper/Snapple Group) on brands such as Mistic, Nantucket Nectars, Mott's, Stewart's Root beer, Orangina and Yoo-hoo Chocolate Drink, I have found that most design firms need a helping hand once they get to the mechanical phase of artwork development.

Design firms bring a broad scope of creative talent and skills to the early and middle phases of design. This would include materials for focus groups, senior management sell-in and then finally into mechanical development, but not the actual mechanicals. Why is this the case? Because; the talent and artists are focused more on great design rather than packaging execution. Not only that, a “mechanical” means something different to a designer than to a printer.

Packaging, as we all know, consists of vastly different processes for the production of the various components: registered shrink sleeve, aluminum can and bottle, pressure sensitive and cut-and-stack label, closure, paperboard and direct or preprint corrugate development.

Each kind of packaging brings with it the baggage of the printing process it is tied to: traditional offset litho, dry offset, flexography, letterpress, narrow web screen printing, roto-gravure and even digital printing.

While the design firm can get the art 'finalized' by submitting the file with the high res files, the color builds are usually off or the die line might not be in the final development stages. The printer might need to deploy a special color build for a match because there may be less color stations available on the press than the job was specified with. 

Even the best design firms struggle with the ability to achieve color, traps and printing effects and this is compounded by the Brand Managers lack of printing experience and prepress. No one likes to get the call from the printer in the final stages of production that an effect can not be achieved or worse, that the press is down the results of which cause delays, scrapped material and at worst, a delayed launch-to-market.

One solution is to employ a central engraver to provided proofs and work directly with the printer and design firm to tie the two goals together. Alternatively the print vendor knows their equipment and they may have in-house prepress that can be utilized to get the job done.

Just make sure to always ask for your files back after the job is complete for future alterations. The communication between the design firm and the printers is critical to great design and great, uninterrupted production. The earlier this communication can happen the better for everyone. 

Have you ever experienced these issues with your packaging?

More Sustainability Ideas from the East Pack NYC show

I just got back from the East Pack show in NY, the show is very big, but is more like six shows combined, Medical Design & Manufacturing, East Pack, Atlantic Design & Manufacturing, Automation Technology Expo, PlastTec East and the Green Manufacturing Expo.

More and more companies are offering sustainability solutions; to compete in the marketplace, companies everywhere are going to have to assess their role moving forward or be left behind. Companies that offer real solutions and not just window-dressing will survive.

Sustainability starts with design and D2M has a system they use to choose the right materials for product development and mechanical engineering. They are geared more towards the electronic and medical markets.

Akeena Solar has residential and commercial solar panel solutions. Solar technology has advanced since the days of President Carter. They will do an audit and again, checking off "yes" in the solar box if you are doing business with the big box stores will get you on the top of their vendor list.

Lime Energy located in South Gate, California offer tools that will meet your sustainability goals by monitoring your facilities HVAC and lighting systems. 

Morrison Container Handling Solutions can come in and audit your filling line and make changes that will reduce the energy used for production of your product.

Tech Container Corp located in MA makes custom engineered reusable plastic storage boxes and claims that by using these boxes as part of your business plan, helps to drive down "pollutants, solid waste and green house gases by 70%". They will audit your corrugate usage and come up with reusable box/tray solutions. The boxes can also come with RFID tags so you can track your inventory. The boxes themselves use no glue to assemble and are 100% recyclable.

UFP's Molded Fiber division is the leading manufacturer of interior packaging solutions made from 100% recycled paper. They can design and engineer a solution for your product. I happen to like this material as a substitute for styrofoam. 

Occasionally, I get boxes filled with this product and I love it. Milex makes a super all natural, biodegradable 100% grain protein based loose-fill Styrofoam substitute. There are no petrochemicals or corn used in the manufacturing process so they expect the price to remain constant. They can even lease you the equipment to manufacture their product in your facility saving trucking costs.

Another company to watch is Orbis Corporation that makes plastic pallets, totes and containers. According to their literature, you will save 7000 gallons of water if you eliminate 800 corrugate boxes. Almost enough to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool. They also have a handy website with a "Green Calculator" that allows you to do quick calculations on your paper and pallet usage to calculate savings. 

The Gem Gravure company makes printers and ink-jet and gravure inks that eliminate VOC's

Here is something really unique: Green Club Inc. makes a product called Addiflex. When added to polyolefin, the additive renders the plastic biodegradable. If this interests you, check out their site. 

I would like to add again that these are my own observations and I have no interest in the above companies or am being paid for my comments!!