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PHOTO COURTESY OF INLINE PLASTICS
launch a new wood grain RPC that has all the
benefits of traditional RPCs, but is designed
with the look and feel of wood crates and
transition easily from transportation and
storage to in-store displays that appeal to retail
customers,” says Hillary Femal, vice president
for global marketing at IFCO, Tampa, FL.
IFCO, the largest RPC maker in North
America, announced in June agreements to
provide 130 growers with more than a millionand-a-half
RPCs with the stylish but retro
wood-grain look.
The company received encouraging news
from a survey early this year of consumer
reaction to its sharp looking plastic produce
containers.
“Brandcheck conducted a consumer survey
in 11 countries and found consumers prefer
IFCO RPCs over cardboard boxes for fresh
food packaging by a 55 percent to 25 percent
margin,” says Femal. “The Global Shopper
Produce Display Preferences Survey, conducted
in February 2016 by [Mississauga, ON-based]
Brandcheck, surveyed 2,200 consumers in 11
countries to determine grocery shopper preferences
in relation to the two most prevalent
types of produce packaging used for display
Jack Tilley of Inline Plastics says “clear packaging lets the items ‘sell themselves,’ as consumers are
attracted to the color palette and can see the contents to be assured of the freshness.”
– IFCO RPCs and cardboard boxes. “IFCO
RPCs are the top produce packaging choice of
men and women, as well as every age cohort,”
says Femal.
Cardboard box makers have also stepped
up their graphics game, and offer more striking
visuals to attract consumers and promote grower-shipper
brands.
“The print quality has improved tremendously,”
says Rethlake of International Paper.
“The graphics give you the ability to brand your
product. If you go from a brown craft box to
one that has a lithograph label or pre-print, you
get tremendous improvement in print quality.”
Cases ready for retail are becoming far more
prevalent as retailers look to manage their in
store labor requirements.
“We are seeing a significant movement
toward retail-ready cases,” says Clear Lam’s
Forowycz. “These shipper merchandisers are
designed to be opened easily and placed on the
store shelf. The retail-ready cases enhance shelf
utilization and reduce store labor.”
In addition to the shelves that are traditionally
used to display produce, more retailers
are also using upright displays that can hold
pouches used to ship fresh fruits and vegetables.
“There are more and more stand-up displays
in which the pouches are displayed,” says Hans
Christian Schur, chief executive of Schur Star
Systems, Oceanside, CA. “Instead of displaying
the produce in bulk, there are corrugated standup
displays of pouches. It’s something that
recently became more prominent.”
Schur Star Systems makes a variety of
stand-up, peelable, resealable, and rezippable
bags in various shapes with unique features
used to ship and display a wide variety of
produce. “We don’t just do standard pouches;
we also offer flexible, on-the-shelf packaging
with many different convenience options.”
The pouches, which can be visually prominent
in the stand-up displays, also benefit
from more striking graphics than ever before.
“The graphics can be very strong,” says
Schur. “Sometimes we use a double layer to give
the graphics even more power. In fact, that’s
the process we used for the jar-bag program
64 / AUGUST 2016 / PRODUCE BUSINESS