The Importance of Packaging: How a Small Change Can Make a Big Difference

 




From the time we started our business in 1979 through 1981, cheese packages accounted for 100% of our sales. In 1982, the same year we entered the promotional products industry, we added mints, cashews, hams, smoked turkeys and a few other gourmet items. Through the years, cheese packages became a smaller and smaller percentage of our total sales. By 2005, cheese packages represented about 3% of sales.

In December of 2005, while shopping at Fox & Obel, a very upscale food market in Chicago, my wife and I discovered an extremely attractive label on a block of cheese. Two weeks later, at the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco, we ran across a “butcher wrapped” stick of summer sausage. With these two ideas fresh in our minds, we sat down to redesign our cheese packages. A graphic designer helped us create more upscale labels for our blocks of cheese. We wrapped our summer sausage in a butcher wrap-type paper. Then, we convinced our cracker supplier to change the color of the box they used for our crackers from an almost neon yellow to a rich navy blue. With the new, more upscale look that we had given to our cheese, sausage, and cracker box, it was time to shoot updated photos for our catalog. Our photographer and food stylist did a great job of presenting the new packaging. We printed our catalog and distributed it for the 2006 holiday gift season. Lo and behold, our sales of cheese packages increased by over 50% in 2006, and another 40% in 2007! It was the same cheese, the same sausage, and the same crackers. Packaging made the difference!