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Non-Tech : The Children's Beverage Group (TCBG) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LemonHead who wrote (2031)	11/3/1998 1:37:00 AM
From: mark cox	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2452

I received the September issue of Packaging Digest today. It is the one with the article on TCBG's rip it sip it. I will type in some of the article. A tidy and transparent pouch, complete with its own drinking straw inside, has all the markings of a hit for Brain Forest flavored pure spring water for kids from The Children's Beverage Group. But the Northbrook, Illinois based company is brainstorming more ways to snowball the impact of the AmeriStar award-winning standup pouch by extending its product line to include 10% juice drinks in assorted flavors. The Children's Beverage Group plans to move into national distribution in a big way with a new juice drink pouch, paving the way for private label brands, several stockkeeping units and additional product launches. Distribution of the new 10% juices will initially start in the Northeast corridor and down to the Midwest, says company CEO John Darmstadter, though he tells PD he's confident the new package and products will quickly establish themselves nationally, not only for the Brain Forest brand, but for other brands. Rollout of the products is in general merchandise, drug and superstore chains. Customers include such large chains as Wal-mart and Winn-Dixie. Darmstadter indicates the goal is to maintain an everyday price range roughly 25% below that of a major juice drink competitor. Also equipped with inner straw, the new juice drink pouch comes in a slightly smaller 200ml 6 3/4oz. size which is completely opaque and tapered at the top. Under development for about a year, the new pouch is also produced on the Volpak S-240 DF intermittent motion, horizontal form/fill/seal system that inserts the straw in-line. The market speaks loudly, notes J.P. Perreault, vp of manufacturing. We have to meet demand for a competitor to a major pouched juice drink brand. Our film/foil package has all the characteristics to make our juice drink products winners. Additional products, including 100% juice, are also in the works, Perreault notes. Measuring 4 5/8 in. at its widest point and standing 6 1/4 in. tall, the unique juice pouch tapers toward the top seal which, like the water pouch, gets a clean directional tear, or Children's patent-pending rip it sip it feature, via a laser cut score line just above the seal area. A machine applied tear nick also facilitates opening. The drinking straw is enclosed within a 1/2 inch wide double sealed area at one corner of the pouch, which keeps the straw securely in position during filling. Once the tear notch is accessed, a clean strip of film tears away across the top of the pouch, courtesy of the laser cut, and the straw pops up while the rest of the pouch remains sealed. Shelf life of the various hot- and cold-filled products is a minimum of one year, Perreault indicates. Efficiency, speed and most importantly, accuracy were underscored by Children's to produce both water and juice drink pouches, especially in light of the product line expansion. Company projections indicate a sales spurt of the new line of juices that Children's expects will continue through the rest of the 90's and beyond. The technology to insert a straw and package the product at high speeds is what most impressed the packaging team at Children's, says Perreault, adding that the company appreciates the benefits of forming its own packages. Its a question of economics and speed he says. Having our pouches made inline gives us great control over the production process. The equipment is modular. Its also the best horizontal form/fill/seal liquid handling system out there for this type of application. There really wasn't another machine that could actually insert a straw inside a pouch and do it so reliably. Generally, the pouches are produced on one of six Volpak S-240 DF hf/f/s systems thus far situated at three production sites of contract packagers including Cliffstar in Joplin MO. and Sweet Ripe in Toronto. Ultimately, we hope to add more machines, Perreault explains. We plan to have more running by the end of the year, and are looking at even further additions, so we're hoping to output quite a lot more product. Perreault pegs actual operating speeds of the machines running the Brain Forest pouches at about 110 per minute. The machines can also make one large pouch twice the size of the regular one. Darmstadter says he's most pleased with the equipment suppliers and their dedication and commitment to creating a cutting edge product that sets a standard for all liquid pouched products, with the unique rip it sip it patent pending straw in the pouch feature he says, we have clearly created a better package and product profile. The article also has 7 color pictures of the pouches and Volpaks. The new smaller pouch for the juices is printed on the outside of the opaque package. The shape resembles a coffin sort of because it tapers down smaller as it gets to the top. They mentioned that the Volpaks can also make a double wide pouch. Maybe TCBG can come up with a " Big Gulp " sort of drink somewhere down the road. The original package looks neat. The water fall and forest are printed on the inside of the back and there is a rainbow colored fish jumping out of the water. With the front of the package clear, it looks to me like a pouch aquarium. I've never seen anything that comes close to looking anything like these packages. This article was NOT about TCBG the stock. The article was about packaging. I left out about 2/3 of the article. They go into a lot of detail about how the pouch is formed inside the machine. I'd love to see that in motion. It fills 2 pouches at a time. Also I never thought about using these packages for both hot and cold products. Hot chocolate or soups perhaps? It was good to see this article in a non stock non PR piece of literature. Mark