Month: February 2020

Can we learn a marketing lesson from craft brewers? Marketing by packaging.

The craft brewing scene is booming also in Sweden with a big number of small brewers and glass bottles are the dominating pack type. Glass bottles represents tradition and premium, two of the impressions that you as a craft brewer work really hard to convey to your consumers.
When you are selling a product at a price three times above your industrial brewing competitors, you have to work hard on your image. But something is happening…

What is it with craft beer and cans? I have noticed an increased interest in beverage cans from the local craft brewers, or microbeweries, here in Sweden.
One after the other launch new products in beer cans, not in glass bottles. Glass bottles used to be the standard for this premium beer segment.

The craft brewing scene is booming also in Sweden with a big number of small brewers and glass bottles are the dominating pack type. Glass bottles represents tradition and premium, two of the impressions that you as a craft brewer work really hard to convey to your consumers.
When you are selling a product at a price three times above your industrial brewing competitors, you have to work hard on your image. But something is happening…

The power of glass
The beverage can is in many consumer’s eyes a packaging used for mass production that does not necessary contain very sophisticated brews.
The craft brewers have mostly been true to glass bottles for their precious drops, and that for a few sound reasons.

  1. A craft brewer with self-respect have a large number of creative varieties of beer available and need flexibility in production. To use only one container and vary the label is efficient in a low volume production of several product varieties.
  2. It is also cost effective as you can get away with rather basic equipment when filling bottles on a small scale. And it is often also simply impossible for a small brewer to purchase the amounts of decorated cans needed to reach the lowest order level.
  3. Last but not least, the positioning of the product. Glass stands for quality, premium and tradition. These are images you very much want to reflect on your craft brew.

Incredible growth
Most of the above is still valid but the trend is clearly towards using more cans for the most premium products and for very small product batches.
The numbers speak for themselves, in 2019 the volume craft beer in cans increased by 2.5 times, for the second year in a row!
An increase from 8% of the craft beer volume to 17% in three years. In 2017, 12 brewers made 35 beer products available in cans. In 2019 70 brewers offered more than 400 products in cans. That’s an improvement!

Why is this?
The trend is clear and seems unstoppable. The movement is founded on a few obvious facts and some a bit more hazy.

* Some of the craft brewers have simply expanded their markets and volumes and are ready to invest in cans and a can filling line.
* Others have managed to get one single and specific product on a national distribution and can take the leap with that one product.
* Some who not yet have those volumes use blank cans and attach a unique label to maintain the flexibility.

Then it helps that the suppliers of cans have spotted the opportunity in craft beer and are lowering the bar for the smallest order.
Finally, but not least, consumers appreciate the product.

Environment and quality
All brewers I have heard comment on this argue the environmental benefits and the improved quality of the product. A sealed can is an airtight space and it is completely dark inside which maintains the quality. A can is easily recycled in this country with an efficient deposit scheme in place. As a matter of fact, 85% of the distributed cans are returned and recycled.

Marketing by packaging
They just do it! And they do it within the very narrow space that is left due to the current and very strict regulations around all alcohol promotion.
They build their brand using the means that are available, except from the product itself what is left is basically, the website, the shop and the bar.
At the point of sales there is nothing else you can use than the packaging itself. This is a clean case of marketing by packaging. The pack type, size, design and decoration are key to positioning and sales of a beer product in this market.

They utilize the packaging very well with brilliant graphic design, creative fonts and inspirational product names. And of course, a great product with a high and stable quality is very helpful when you want to convince consumers. 

An inspiring industry
This is a small scale industry with very limited resources that is constrained by square and rigid laws. They have still managed to turn the opinion and make something considered as a very basic packaging into a premium container. And successfully claiming a price three times the “normal”.
This is quite an achievement and well worth to celebrate. Why not with an unfiltered, hoppy and hazy beer? From a can, plenty to choose from…

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We want less plastic! And more of… what?


Yes, what do we want instead? We can’t always replace plastic with a renewable material. Then what about recycled plastic, more sustainable plastic that is efficiently recovered and that comes from an organised collection system? Does that sound a bit better?

Coca-Cola is in the news with their new line of bottles entirely made from recycled PET. Fantastic! Coca-Cola Sweden is during 2020 switching to only use PET bottles with 100% recycled material for their leading brands, Coca-Cola, Fanta, Sprite and Bonaqua, 40 SKUs.

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This is not a small thing as using recycled material in food contact is a complex mission surrounded by of rules and regulations. The Swedish deposit system really helps here as it makes the recycling stream of PET bottles relatively pure.
Beverage bottles, and cans, are here collected and recycled separately and can in theory be turned back into new cans and bottles. Today around 85% of the distributed bottles are returned and recycled. Normally recycled PET tends to be cloudy due to unintended mixes and potentially tainted by other random plastic in the recycle process. This is avoided in a controlled stream like this.

In a recent report from McKinsey, “The drive toward sustainability in packaging—beyond the quick wins”, this is discussed, among other things. The report concludes that to successfully address the recyclability and waste challenges more collaboration is needed along the value chain. To manage increased recycling new infrastructure needs to be built and more closed system must be employed.

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A closed and dedicated deposit system clearly makes recycling more efficient as it is separate and, closed. The Swedish deposit system is managed by Returpack, an organisation owned jointly by retailers and fillers together. When the deposit system was created also packaging converters were involved which makes it a good example of an efficient recycling structure.

Another brand owner who is blazing new trails in this field is Nestlé. The company is seriously investing in the development of new packaging concepts in their effort to have 100% of its packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025. The newly inaugurated Nestlé Institute of Packaging Sciences is unique and aims to support the process. The Institute is going to do its bit of development of functional and environmentally friendly packaging solutions and to address plastic packaging waste.

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Nestlé is now investing a staggering €2 billion to explore the possibilities to widen the market for food-grade recycled plastics. The Institute will be involved but the main investment will be in driving the market for food-grade recycled plastics by boosting demand and by being ready to pay a premium.
They are now demanding 2 million tons over a period of time and are willing to pay for it, to create a market. Brilliant!

Plastic is at present needed, especially in the food industry to minimise food waste, and it is possible to create a circular economy also for plastics. To get there a system for collecting and recycling plastic must be in place. But there needs to be a corresponding demand as well. Today it is more expensive to use recycled materials than virgin. But with a higher demand and larger volumes the price should go down and thereby generate more demand.
Hopefully a process that creates a virtuous cycle spinning us towards a circular and healthy economy.

These are great examples of steps in the right direction to increase demand for recycled plastic materials. This will also drive the development of efficient systems for processing.
But, in the end, the consumers are going to do a big part of the job. We must not forget to inform and motivate to sort and return the empty packaging through this efficient system.

E-commerce and logistics – room for new concepts!

E-commerce will continue to grow, and that at the expense of traditional retailing. Online shopping will soon be the norm for shopping. The supply chain needs to adjust to this.

One man’s convenience is another man’s stress
One of the consequences of us shopping from home, or on-the-go using the phone, is a stressed logistics system. The result is visible, congested traffic and overloaded bottle necks.
The logistic system supporting online shopping can be divided in two steps. The first leg is from producer to a Customer Fulfillment Centre or CFC. The second is from the CFC to consumer. This is a very different supply chain from the traditional and we have all noticed the growing number of lorries on the roads. New innovative delivery methods are invented and tried out. Robots, drones and electrical vehicles of all kinds, self-driving and not. These solutions are mainly focused on the last mile delivery, that is from the customer fulfilment centre (CFC) to the consumer. This “last mile” transport can be organised in various ways, it can be home deliveries or to a pack-station at offices, supermarkets or in train stations.

Remarkable last mile solutions

Drones
Amazon introduced the concept of drone deliveries in 2016 and shared a few months ago a project update. They are still developing the concept and now showed us an increasingly sophisticated flying vehicle capable to deliver up to 90% of the packages they are delivering today. And safely too.
Wings has a similar solution but with a different spin.  They offer the same service, drone deliveries, but instead they link consumers to a range of local stores. An order is placed, and the drone picks up goods from the specified shop and delivers, all the way home. On trial in Australia, Finland and in the US.

Robots
Some drones are instead found moving around on the ground. In the UK, Tesco has started to deliver groceries using robots. A pilot test is located to Milton Keynes where Tesco is working with Estonian based robotics company Starship Technologies. A low 6-wheeled cart carries parcels, meals and groceries delivering to homes within a 3 km radius.
In the US Kiwibot is doing very much the same, home deliveries using robots, but in this case the 4-wheeled carts are bringing food from local restaurants. Also this is a concept in the building but it is inspiring to see all the creativity coming out to meet the demand for fast home deliveries.

The first leg of the supply chain
The above are solutions for shorter distances, the second leg of the supply chain. To get the goods from the producer to the CFCs lorries, train and boats are used, creating traffic overflow. That is until now. Until we heard of Magway.

British Magway has come up with the idea of building a network of pipes around the country. This planned grid of tubes, with a diameter of 90 cm, is supposed to carry goods, beneath and above ground. Instead of using trucks on the road, cargo will be sent around in pods in these tubes fitted with rails and powered by magnetism. An electric current will run through a track in the pipe, creating a magnetic wave that will drive the packed pods at speeds of 80 km/h.

Magway is an example of sustainable new thinking for a new era where consumers want their goods and that immediately. The normal distribution chain with goods-in-cases-and-on-pallets will with increasing online shopping soon not be the norm anymore.
Online shopping means that products are sent on their own or together with random other products. New methods are needed, and Magway has come up with a radical e-commerce delivery system that will reduce traffic on the roads and ease traffic congestion. The system promises reliable and predictable deliveries to CFCs and to a lower cost.

The first route planned is an 80 km route from northwest London to Milton Keynes, where large numbers of distribution centres are located. Already this year a 2 km test track will be built and tested.

This is an interesting period in time when online shopping is growing very fast and shoppers are expecting immediate deliveries. New solutions are really needed to gear up the supply chain for the new needs with lots of room for new thinking and developing of new concepts. All the above mentioned enterprises are going to be exciting to follow and I will absolutely keep an eye on all of them.