Korean Red Pepper Powder in a Fiery Award-Winning Packaging Design

26 Dec 2009 --- In a country where red pepper powder is an essential part of the people’s diet, the package design for the seasoning tends to be ignored by South Koreans. One local brand owner has decided to stimulate consumers’ senses by creating vibrant packaging that helps its Haechandeul brand of red pepper powder stand out from its competitors.

CJ CheilJaDang Corporation is a South Korean conglomerate with business in Food & Food Service, Bio Pharma, Entertainment Media, and Home Shopping & Logistics. During preparations for the launch of its Haechandeul Red Pepper Powder, CJ decided that its product had to be presented in well-designed packaging.

“Package design in red pepper powder products in Korea tend to take a simple and dry approach in communication their products,” the company explained in an interview. “They show a picture of red pepper and its weight. That’s it.

“We don’t want to look the same. We want to be different. We want our customers to make an emotional and visual connection to our product, Haechandeul Red Pepper Powder.”

The company’s design unit, CJ CheilJaDang Design Center, was given the task of “stimulating customers’ senses… make the product stand out from the crowd”. The result is a range of packaging with vibrant colourful graphics and interesting structural features, designed by Jisun Kim, the creative director of the design center.

The vibrant graphic design

Haechandeul Red Pepper Powder is available in two packaging formats: a blow molded bottle with an injection molded cap, and a flat-bottom stand-up pouch. The pouch packaging features eye-catching images of countryside fields under a clear blue sky with a traditional sack of newly-plucked red peppers, to illustrate the freshness and authenticity of the product.

An image of a dragonfly hovers over the red pepper image; the insect is, in local culture, a symbol of the peak of the autumn harvesting season and cleanliness as they thrive in clean environments and are easily spotted during the harvesing season in South Korea.

While the label of the bottle package does not feature images of clear skies and ripe red peppers, a similar image of the traditional sack is used as the background graphic on which rests the product logo – according to CJ, the sack portrays a humble and confident belief in their products.

Structural packaging that aids product use

“A common problem with packaged red pepper powder is that once its packaging is opened, the product gets hard and lumps into one big crumb after a while,” CJ said. “This irritates customers and also gives the impression that the product is no longer fresh and past its expiry date when it hasn’t.”

To solve that problem, CJ designed a double bar under the cap of its bottle package. “We put a double bar, which is attached to the cap, inside of the container. This mechanism automatically whisks the powder inside whenever the container is being opened or closed, and stops our products getting solid and dry. It always keeps the powder fresh and soft.”
For the pouch packaging, a resealable zip is attached to the opening to ensure freshness, while providing consumer convenience by making the package reusable.

In addition, the container has a unique triangular shaped body that makes it easy-to-hold and requires less energy on consumers’ part to open the bottle. The top face of the cap also has the product name in Braille.

The careful attention paid to the Haechandeul Red Pepper Powder packaging design was recently recognised at this year’s Pentawards. CJ was presented with the Bronze Award (Food – Spices, Oils and Sauces) at the Pentawards award ceremony held on 2 October 2009 during the Brussels Design Forum.

Baeksul Organic

CJ creates many of its other packaging designs in-house, such as the Baeksul Organic range of processed sugar, flour and olive products.

The dominant graphic design feature is the word ‘Organic’ in Korean calligraphic form – specifically created for the product brand range –throughout the packaging. “This enforces the brand’s authentic personality,” explained CJ.

The packaging design theme is also consistent: subdued and reserved colours and simple but eye-catching graphics communicate the product range’s natural organic origins. In addition, the stylish designs set the products apart from other organic competitors.

For example, on one hand of the spectrum: the packaging for the flour product uses simple, friendly but honest illustrations on brown paper labels to highlight the product’s organic nature.

On the other end, CJ offers a olive oil gift set which packaging uses a suede textured material on the exterior and silvery green fabric on the interior. This meets the dual purposes of keeping to the organic nature of the product, while at the same time adding a touch of luxury befitting a gift set.