Kirin Beverage Corporation Launches Two Exciting New Packages for Canned Coffee

The company is using two different fully enclosed carton styles to help their "Fire" brand stand out at point of sale.

22/03/06 BRUSSELS, Belgium -- In Japan, Kirin Beverage Corporation has launched its Fire canned coffee brand in two distinctive new packages supplied by Rengo Riverwood Packaging (Graphic Packaging International's joint venture in Japan).

Canned coffee has been a phenomenal success in Japan over the last thirty years and, uniquely, the leading national canned soft drink brand is a coffee and not a cola. The canned coffee sector is extremely competitive, so to enhance product differentiation Kirin Beverage is using two different fully enclosed carton styles to help their "Fire" brand stand out at point of sale.

They selected a 10 x 190ml Fridge Vendor(R) package to be marketed as a retail unit pack. The Fridge Vendor concept has been well proven globally for a huge range of well known beverage brands and products. In this instance, cans are in a 2 x 5 configuration, and as with all Fridge Vendor packs, the proportions maximize use of precious refrigerator space and the concept encourages consumption of cold product with a user-friendly dispensing feature.

To promote sales of individual cans, Kirin Beverage chose a 15 x 190ml Tower Pack(R) with a 3 x 5 configuration. This Shelf Ready Can Display/Dispenser pack maximizes valuable shelf space at retail, while at the same time providing an easy-to-use dispenser to allow consumers to select individual cans. Vertically oriented graphics provide an eye-catching "billboard" which stands out among the jumble of individual cans and trays from other brands and eliminates the need to "face up" individual cans on the shelf.

Keith Brimble, Graphic Packaging International's European Marketing Manager for Beverage commented, "These packages are good illustrations of the marketing advantages innovative package design can bring, offering benefits to brand owners, retailers and consumers. Although the fundamental constructional design of these packages is similar, optimization of manufacturing efficiencies, clever use of product count, pack configuration and graphics orientation, coupled with effective, well designed opening and dispensing features has created two very different and precisely targeted offerings at point of sale."