International Snack Food Manufacturer Reduces Waste and Increases Consumer Satisfaction
The Situation
A specialty snack food manufacturer who distributes their products across the United States was experiencing packaging issues before the package ever made it into the consumers’ hands. Periodically, product packages would develop a slow air leak which would lead to a poor shelf appearance and potentially change the shelf life of the product. In addition to the air leak issue, it was possible that packages would burst open during transit. This particular problem appeared to only be happening to the product that was being distributed to the west coast.
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- Bags need to remain sealed until they are in the consumers’ hands to maintain package integrity and product freshness
- Delivery route needs to be flexible in order to meet delivery request dates
The Solution
By gaining a full understanding of the customers’ issue, AWT Labels & Packaging determined that the package seal failure was occurring when the product was traveling over high elevation routes to the West Coast. A temporary solution was for the manufacturer to divert the distribution trucks on routes that avoided the drastic changes in altitude. This added additional transportation costs as well as extended the lead times on their products.
Without making any drastic changes to the look and feel of the packaging, AWT developed an alternative structure that was specifically designed to run well on the manufacturer’s machines and virtually eliminated the leaking issues.
The Result
The new material structure offers a wider window of operation for the manufacturer, which has increased efficiencies in their plant and eliminated the damage being caused to the packaging.
The Bottom Line
- Consumer complaints regarding partially opened packaging and out of shelf life products have virtually been eliminated leading to a significant increase in consumer satisfaction
- Transportation costs have been greatly reduced as a result of delivery route flexibility
