Bendicks: Corrugated cardboard shelf ready packaging

Bendicks of Mayfair, a well-known chocolate and confectionery manufacturer, approached GWP Packaging to help with a complex packaging brief.

The company had a specific need for a transit carton for their 6x200g Chocolate Collection Range, but this had a number of much more detailed requirements.

This encompassed not only transit protection but also retail display and POS requirements and a need to hit a very tight budget effectively becoming a cost reduction project.

Founded in 1931, Bendicks has been creating its’ famous chocolates – including the well-known “bittermints” – for over 80 years.

Positioning themselves as premium confectioners, and playing on their strong heritage (which saw them open their first shop in London’s exclusive Mayfair in the 1930s), the company was also recognised with a Royal Warrant on 1962, adding to the brand’s air of sophistication and luxury.

Bendicks’ range now incorporates a wide range of chocolates using only the finest ingredients, as it remains popular with today’s discerning consumers.

Despite this rich heritage, Bendicks were not immune to the packaging challenges faced by many companies today.

The company already had existing packaging that they were using for a specific range of products, but they were suffering from a number of problems and difficulties.

Their existing pack had an E flute base tray with angled sides, so not only was it unnecessarily expensive, it gave no stacking strength, and led to crushing problems when in transit.

The contents were also transported in an angled position (to fulfil the presentation requirement when in store), which meant the use of an additional B flute fitting to fill the “fresh air” within the outer packaging.

To encase the tray, fitting and contents for transportation, an 0200 glued outer was placed over the top and taped up. The major disadvantage with this is that once in store, employees cut the tape at the top which often resulted in the knife then damaging the contents.

In light of these issues, Bendicks came to GWP with several key requirements.

Firstly the pack had to perform its transit functions by delivering the product undamaged for in-store display and purchase. This included a requirement for the pack to be easy to open to prevent damage to the contents at this stage also.

Upon receipt by the store, the pack was required to perform a point of sale function in which it needs to display the contents at a fifteen-degree angle.

Considering both of the above points, plus Bendicks positioning as luxury brand within the market, the overall aesthetic had to project quality and also reflect the brands place within the crowded confectionary market.

And with all of this in mind, the packaging also had to be delivered within some very tight financial budgets.

The pack designed by GWP not only overcame these issues, through well thought out, clever packaging design, it has also provided Bendicks with a far more cost-effective solution.

In fact, it led to savings in material, production, manual handling and transportation costs.

To achieve the desired solution GWP re-designed the main tray to incorporate full depth width panels, which solved the problems of crushing in transportation.

Incorporating this feature also allowed a radius to be added to the internal flaps that in turn enabled the back of the pack to be in either an upright position for transport or at a fifteen-degree angle for display.

This feature allowed the contents to be transported in the upright and facilitated the tilt back of the product to maximise display most effectively in store.

Most importantly though it has given an 18% external pack volume size reduction, which in turn has enhanced pallet rationalisation, and as a result, has produced savings in transport costs.

The thought processes behind the lid design was based on several factors that included, product safety, manual handling, material rationalisation and graphical impact.

For example, to save on material two-thirds of the lid comes from the waste of the base tray. This not only gives a material saving, it now makes the whole pack one component, and not three as with the previous design.

This has offered Bendick’s cost savings of 32% in material, and extensive savings in production due to the one blank now being manufactured.

Manual handling of the lid has been made easy, as once the contents are loaded the lid simply slides down the back. The user-friendly front tabs then tuck in at the front of the pack.

The pack then simply goes through an automatic taping process and is ready for palletisation.

Once in store, the tape is cut at the two points indicated so the blade has no potential of damaging the contents, solving one of the major issues with damaged products.

Surface area for graphical impact has been maximised due to the surface area given by the new lid design.

Annual usage on this one line is approximately 10,000. However, due to the success of the redesigned pack, Bendicks will be using the design for four more of their popular retail lines.

GWP did a great job on the redesign of the pack. The new version has not only reduced the amount of transit and store damage the line was facing but has also realised some quite significant cost savings as well. And this has all been achieved whilst maintaining the visual impact fitting with the Bendicks brand.

For further information on cost savings strategies for packaging that you can take advantage of, or for more details on retail-ready packaging, please visit the products section of our website (or get in touch!)