PACKAGING TO ENTER THE MARKETPLACESmall-to-medium sized entrepreneurial food product start-ups are oftentimes challenged with finding a packaging container that will help them enter the marketplace successful-ly. However, the very thing they desire—shelf differentiation—is not easy to achieve when the launch is not backed by over a million unit quantities which get the attention of most custom bottle manufacturers. This was the situation that the management of Sir Kensington line of condiments found itself in when trying to find a new package to help propel its disruptive products into consumer shopping carts.

“It can be very difficult to find somebody willing to work with you if you are not in the

million-plus unit range. Pretium, on the other hand, invited us to their plant with open arms.”

AT THE PROJECT’S CENTER, A DESIGN THAT SPEAKS TO CONSUMERS“When we first started the company, we had the realization that many food categories were moving forward, but condiments had been left behind. With the evolution toward nutritional consciousness, clean labels, etc., we wanted to develop a ketchup that was aligned with the way we wanted to eat,” explains Scott Norton, cofounder of Sir Kens-ington’s. “We also wanted to create a ketch-up with a more savory profile vs. sweet and do so in the most natural, whole version possible. We wanted to honor real food.”The company decided to create a British character, Sir Kensington, to support its premium product. The company’s website paints the following picture, “Born to a mer-chant family in Great Britain, Sir Kensington attended Oxford University for his course of undergraduate study, attaining degrees in mercantile trade, agronomy and culinary arts. Inspired by herbal curiosities brought

west by sail, he developed a wanderlust and shifted his focus to the Orient.”“Sir Kensington is a Victorian naturalist, a philanthropist, a spice trader and a polymath. He represents condiments with character, as well as our team. We define that “character” as integrity and charm,” Norton points out.

CONVERSION FROM GLASS TO HDPE TO PETHaving previously launched the condiment line in glass, and then high-density polyeth-ylene (HDPE), the company discovered that in order to grow its retail business, it wanted to move away from the HDPE bottle and into a clear, inverted 20-ounce PET barrier con-tainer that stands on its closure. The goal was to create a container that would provide shelf-life attributes as well as squeezability and enhanced shelf presence. (With an “all-natural ingredients” product formulation, the container needs to provide barrier prop-erties that help minimize oxygen migration which negatively impacts shelf life.)“Starting out without a marketing budget

KETCHUP WITH INTEGRITY IN A BOTTLE THAT DELIVERS ORGANIC PROFILE Pretium delivers custom bottles with aggressive timeline to Sir Kensington in support of lower- volume “condiments with character” product line.

pretiumpkg.com customerser vice@pretiumpkg.com P: 314 .727.8200

The Sir Kensington’s team was introduced to Pretium Packaging via one of its other industry partners. Dan Barber, Kensington’s vice president of operations discovered that Pretium was willing to work with a company that needed smaller quantities.“It can be very difficult to find somebody willing to work with you if you are not in the million-plus unit range. Pretium, on the other hand, invited us to their plant with open arms. We also like to move very quickly and frequently get push-back from vendors. Pretium also showed a willingness to work with our timeline,” Barber explains.The company wanted a proprietary bottle that was more organic, than architectural. It also wanted softer, sleeker geometries as opposed to sharper angles.

EXPERT ENGINNERING SERVICES, EQUIPMENT AND TECHNOLOGY PLAY A BIG PART IN OUR SUCCESSWhat differentiates Pretium from most bottle manufacturers is that it has equip-ment and technology which enables the use of stock barrier and monolayer preforms to produce smaller bottle quantities in a cost-effective manner. Pretium deploys its expert engineering services to assist brand owners with smaller launches by offering hands-on collaboration and interactive design throughout all developments stages. This results in affordable, custom-designed bottles, as well as improved speed-to-market. “We wanted a bottle that was shaped in such a way that a 20-ounce size would easily fit into hands of various sizes so that both kids and adults could use it easily. We also wanted to make sure that it was wide enough so that our unique label could pro-vide excellent shelf billboarding for differen-tiation,” Barber said.

MEETING AGGRESSIVE TIMELINE GOALS WITH A CUSTOM PACKAGEThe journey began with a cell phone photo that Sir Kensington’s sent to Pretium. It was of a prototype shape they had developed earlier, but had not gone beyond the concept state.

and no pedigree in the food space, we knew that the package would have to work hard for us in order for the product to get atten-tion. When customers walked by it, we wanted them to do a double take so that we could win a place in people’s shopping carts and on their tables,” Norton said. “Our goal was a package that had more of an organic shape. We wanted it to feel as if it came from nature.”

“Pretium’s designer turned the concept into a technical drawing that would eventually become the final bottle. He explained to us that there were only a certain number of preforms in the market and that those would be our ‘guardrails” for length and width for our desired 20-ounce volume,” Barber explained.It took less than six months from the time the cell phone photo was sent to the first qualification bottle run. In between, there were multiple revisions, prototypes and mold qualifications. Two months after that, the first Sir Kensington’s 20-ounce ketchup bottles started hitting retail shelves in two flavors—classic and spicy. The stretch blow molded, multilayer PET/nylon/PET bottle is topped by a 33mm flip-top closure for dispensing ease. It also features the Sir Kens-ington’s name embossed on the shoulder for additional brand support and indented label panels to eliminate scuffing during transport

MORE THAN AN INDIVIDUAL PRODUCT LAUNCH; SUPPORTING A PRODUCT LINEThroughout the PET ketchup bottle timeline, Pretium and Kensington also worked on a new mustard bottle. The directive was to create similarly-shaped containers in various sizes to expand the condiment line and create a family look. The full-bodied, yellow mustard—also recently commercial-ized—comes in a 12-ounce multilayer PET bottle with a 38-400 neck finish. The line has further been extended by using the 20-ounce bottle to also market mayonnaise.“Partnering with Pretium enabled us to meet our aggressive timeline goals with a custom package. Further, the feedback we have gotten from buyers is that they love the appearance and squeezability of the new bottle. We have also seen children easily interact with it which met our ease-of-use objective for different-sized hands,” Norton said. “After all, what good would the bottle be if it couldn’t be used by ketchup’s biggest fans?”

To explore ways Pretium can help you with your packaging objectives, please contact us at: CUSTOMERSERVICE@PRETIUMPKG.COM

PACKAGING TO ENTER THE MARKETPLACESmall-to-medium sized entrepreneurial food product start-ups are oftentimes challenged with finding a packaging container that will help them enter the marketplace successful-ly. However, the very thing they desire—shelf differentiation—is not easy to achieve when the launch is not backed by over a million unit quantities which get the attention of most custom bottle manufacturers. This was the situation that the management of Sir Kensington line of condiments found itself in when trying to find a new package to help propel its disruptive products into consumer shopping carts.

AT THE PROJECT’S CENTER, A DESIGN THAT SPEAKS TO CONSUMERS“When we first started the company, we had the realization that many food categories were moving forward, but condiments had been left behind. With the evolution toward nutritional consciousness, clean labels, etc., we wanted to develop a ketchup that was aligned with the way we wanted to eat,” explains Scott Norton, cofounder of Sir Kens-ington’s. “We also wanted to create a ketch-up with a more savory profile vs. sweet and do so in the most natural, whole version possible. We wanted to honor real food.”The company decided to create a British character, Sir Kensington, to support its premium product. The company’s website paints the following picture, “Born to a mer-chant family in Great Britain, Sir Kensington attended Oxford University for his course of undergraduate study, attaining degrees in mercantile trade, agronomy and culinary arts. Inspired by herbal curiosities brought

west by sail, he developed a wanderlust and shifted his focus to the Orient.”“Sir Kensington is a Victorian naturalist, a philanthropist, a spice trader and a polymath. He represents condiments with character, as well as our team. We define that “character” as integrity and charm,” Norton points out.

CONVERSION FROM GLASS TO HDPE TO PETHaving previously launched the condiment line in glass, and then high-density polyeth-ylene (HDPE), the company discovered that in order to grow its retail business, it wanted to move away from the HDPE bottle and into a clear, inverted 20-ounce PET barrier con-tainer that stands on its closure. The goal was to create a container that would provide shelf-life attributes as well as squeezability and enhanced shelf presence. (With an “all-natural ingredients” product formulation, the container needs to provide barrier prop-erties that help minimize oxygen migration which negatively impacts shelf life.)“Starting out without a marketing budget

The Sir Kensington’s team was introduced to Pretium Packaging via one of its other industry partners. Dan Barber, Kensington’s vice president of operations discovered that Pretium was willing to work with a company that needed smaller quantities.“It can be very difficult to find somebody willing to work with you if you are not in the million-plus unit range. Pretium, on the other hand, invited us to their plant with open arms. We also like to move very quickly and frequently get push-back from vendors. Pretium also showed a willingness to work with our timeline,” Barber explains.The company wanted a proprietary bottle that was more organic, than architectural. It also wanted softer, sleeker geometries as opposed to sharper angles.

EXPERT ENGINNERING SERVICES, EQUIPMENT AND TECHNOLOGY PLAY A BIG PART IN OUR SUCCESSWhat differentiates Pretium from most bottle manufacturers is that it has equip-ment and technology which enables the use of stock barrier and monolayer preforms to produce smaller bottle quantities in a cost-effective manner. Pretium deploys its expert engineering services to assist brand owners with smaller launches by offering hands-on collaboration and interactive design throughout all developments stages. This results in affordable, custom-designed bottles, as well as improved speed-to-market. “We wanted a bottle that was shaped in such a way that a 20-ounce size would easily fit into hands of various sizes so that both kids and adults could use it easily. We also wanted to make sure that it was wide enough so that our unique label could pro-vide excellent shelf billboarding for differen-tiation,” Barber said.

MEETING AGGRESSIVE TIMELINE GOALS WITH A CUSTOM PACKAGEThe journey began with a cell phone photo that Sir Kensington’s sent to Pretium. It was of a prototype shape they had developed earlier, but had not gone beyond the concept state.

and no pedigree in the food space, we knew that the package would have to work hard for us in order for the product to get atten-tion. When customers walked by it, we wanted them to do a double take so that we could win a place in people’s shopping carts and on their tables,” Norton said. “Our goal was a package that had more of an organic shape. We wanted it to feel as if it came from nature.”

“Pretium’s designer turned the concept into a technical drawing that would eventually become the final bottle. He explained to us that there were only a certain number of preforms in the market and that those would be our ‘guardrails” for length and width for our desired 20-ounce volume,” Barber explained.It took less than six months from the time the cell phone photo was sent to the first qualification bottle run. In between, there were multiple revisions, prototypes and mold qualifications. Two months after that, the first Sir Kensington’s 20-ounce ketchup bottles started hitting retail shelves in two flavors—classic and spicy. The stretch blow molded, multilayer PET/nylon/PET bottle is topped by a 33mm flip-top closure for dispensing ease. It also features the Sir Kens-ington’s name embossed on the shoulder for additional brand support and indented label panels to eliminate scuffing during transport

pretiumpkg.com customerser vice@pretiumpkg.com P: 314 .727.8200

“Pretium deploys its expert engineering services to assist brand owners with smaller launches by

offering hands-on collaboration and interactive design throughout all developments stages. This results in affordable, custom-designed bottles,

as well as improved speed-to-market.”

MORE THAN AN INDIVIDUAL PRODUCT LAUNCH; SUPPORTING A PRODUCT LINEThroughout the PET ketchup bottle timeline, Pretium and Kensington also worked on a new mustard bottle. The directive was to create similarly-shaped containers in various sizes to expand the condiment line and create a family look. The full-bodied, yellow mustard—also recently commercial-ized—comes in a 12-ounce multilayer PET bottle with a 38-400 neck finish. The line has further been extended by using the 20-ounce bottle to also market mayonnaise.“Partnering with Pretium enabled us to meet our aggressive timeline goals with a custom package. Further, the feedback we have gotten from buyers is that they love the appearance and squeezability of the new bottle. We have also seen children easily interact with it which met our ease-of-use objective for different-sized hands,” Norton said. “After all, what good would the bottle be if it couldn’t be used by ketchup’s biggest fans?”

To explore ways Pretium can help you with your packaging objectives, please contact us at: CUSTOMERSERVICE@PRETIUMPKG.COM