SQUARE KEEPS THE WORLD GOING ‘ROUND '
Square is the shape of logistics efficiency. Compared with round containers, rectangular packaging can be more than 40% space efficient.
Canterbury-based Barkers Fruit Processors Ltd is a longtime user of the square Viscount Plastics Spacesaver range. With much of Barkers’ fillings, toppings and other products exported, the Spacesaver very successfully addresses the cost challenge of volume-based freighting. For example, the 15ltr Spacesaver achieves 864g/cu.m per pallet compared with round pails 587kg/cu.m, an improvement of 47% per pallet.
Liquid-tight lid
By thinking inside the square, the Viscount Plastics product development team has added to the Spacesaver range’s versatility and application scope with a lid meeting standards required for liquid-tight lids.
Viscount Project engineer Ross Crook believes the Spacesaver to be the first New Zealand developed and manufactured square ‘open head’ container to offer a fully sealing lid. “Rectangular containers are notoriously difficult to sea, so this is a significant achievement,” says Ross, quickly adding that his task was made easier by calling on the experience gained by other sites in the LINPAC Group.
Complimenting its liquid sealing properties, the new lid features a tamper evident strip with convenient ring-pull and is ‘user friendly’ to remove and reapply. Significantly the new lid has earned UN Dangerous Goods approval (packaging group 2) for the 15ltr Spacesaver.
Mini billboard
Branding identity also benefits from square packaging with each of the four sidewalls working as min-billboards; a major plus for shelf presence at the point-of-sale.
