Now, That's a Wrap!

Photo courtesy of Temkin International, Inc.

Retailers think outside the box for holiday packaging

By Karen Meyer

With coffee retailers' busy schedules, it's never too early to start planning ahead for the holiday season. This is the time of year when you send gifts to your suppliers and distributors, and perhaps offer pre-packaged, coffee-themed gifts in your shop for your customers. Since half the fun of receiving a present is what's on the outside, it's worth checking out what's new and exciting in the holiday gift packaging industry.

Fashion packaging
Gift Box Corp. of America, Carlstadt, N.J., offers everything needed for wholesale gift packaging from boxes, bags and wrapping paper to ribbons, bows, tissue and accessories such as cards, envelopes and other supplies. The company also features a large professional art department that can assist retailers in developing designs for their packaging. The company offers online minimum orders of 500 for Gift Box's stock one-piece, two-piece or apparel boxes, which are available with free hot stamping of brand logos.

“One of the biggest changes in the gift packaging industry is that retailers are using more gift bags or boxes rather than wrapping paper," says Pete Shore, director of marketing for Gift Box Corp. of America. “And everything is much more trendy, more colorful. Whatever's hot in the apparel market eventually trickles down to the packaging industry, so colors for gift boxes and bags have morphed from white and natural kraft to all kinds of fashion colors.

“Coffee retailers can use our gift boxes to put together prepackaged sets of mugs and gourmet coffee beans," Shore says. “With your logo printed on it and a beautiful ribbon or bow, you don't even need wrapping paper, and it can make for a very classy presentation. You can also use something as simple as a small shopping bag and add more pizzazz to it with color-coordinated tissue, raffia or sheer ribbons. We offer more than 30 different fashion colors with matching tissue, ribbons and bows, so even very minimal packaging like this can make a statement and be a fulfilling gift experience."

Nashville Wraps® in Henderson, Tenn., specializes in both everyday and special-occasion packaging products, personalized ribbons and labels, and organization supplies for retailers. It is dedicated to creating original designs that increase store traffic and sales.

Photo courtesy of Howard Packaging

Joni Compton, advertising coordinator for Nashville Wraps, says that retailers who prefer wrapping paper for their gifts should go for the high-fashion or luxury look. “The demand for high-quality products will continue to drive the market this Christmas," Compton says. “Watch for items that your customer will perceive as luxury: containers that are out of the ordinary, keepsake packaging like Nashville Wraps' hinged gift and gourmet presentation boxes or the wine and food nested boxes in our Red Scroll design. We will see texture and shape as important elements in packaging."

Another example is Nashville Wraps' popular Martini Mix© gift and gourmet packaging collection. Each collection features a combination of deluxe European-styled rope handle totes, frosted plastic shopping bags and paper shopping bags, gift wrapping paper, printed tissue paper and coordinated gift and candy boxes. All feature colorful designs of trees, ornaments or wreaths.

“There is never a loss of traditional themes available at holiday times and snowmen and snowflakes are still very good choices," Compton says. “Look for new elements in our traditional designs like Snowman Wonderland, Peppermint Snowflakes and Frosted Whimsical Snowmen. This theme group combines a touch of whimsy with hot new colors and traditional elements like snowflakes, snowmen and evergreen trees to make quite a statement.”

Compton says that adding shopping bags in various sizes along with ribbon and labels customized with a shop's logo is the easiest and most popular method to create a store brand. “These items, which personalize the customer's shopping experience, are no longer exclusively ordered by large stores," she says. “Such products are very affordable for today's smaller retailer who takes branding seriously and wants to encourage sales from regular customers and out-of-town guests."

Temkin International of Payson, Utah, a major supplier of gift materials that serves the floral, gift and food packaging industries with a diverse line of stock and custom patterns, can provide coffee retailers with kits to help them create their own gift packages. “Our kits contain packaging materials such as gift bags or baskets, cellophane sheets, shredded fill, ties, along with step-by-step instruction sheets that can help shop personnel to create their own gift packages using their existing inventory," says Cindy Rapshus, vice president of business development for Temkin International. “For example, they could fill one of their coffee mugs with a bag of candy or coffee beans and package it in one of our baskets or bags to create a unique gift item.

“These kit materials can also be customized with their own logo or artwork," Rapshus continues, “or themed for particular holidays such as Christmas, Valentine's Day or St. Patrick's Day. Retailers and their employees can have a lot of fun using these kits to translate their on-hand stock into greater sales."

Photo courtesy of Planet Canit, LLC

Temkin also carries accessories to help complete holiday gift packages such as clear envelopes for gift cards and a new product called Scent SticksTM–15-inch, scent-infused plastic sticks that are designed to blend into any arrangement or product and intensify the impact of the gift with a whiff of aroma. Scent Sticks are available in a variety of fragrances including Coffee, Chocolate, Caramel, Cinnamon, Vanilla, Citrus, Eucalyptus, Lavender, Pine, Rose as well as custom scents.

A unique presentation for gift boxes is to make a box tower such as those featured by Specialty Box & Packaging Co. of Albany, N.Y., which offers a wide variety of boxes, bags, gift wrap, ribbons, tissue, bows, cellophane, theme packaging and take-out foodservice packaging. “The box tower is something we do really well," says Specialty Box & Packaging co-owner Eric Fialkoff. “It's a graduating tower made of very high-quality, different-sized boxes stacked on top of each other and tied together with distinctive ribbon. You decide what to put in the boxes, but this way the boxes themselves become part of the gift. Our in-house creative design department, You Dream It ... We'll Design ItTM, can help you design a completely customized look for really classic gift giving."

Green packaging
The environmental ideology known as the green movement continues to influence many areas of society, including gift giving.

“People are becoming more concerned about global warming, cleaner fuel, recycling–anything that impacts the environment," says Ron Watson, president of Howard Packaging in Lincolnwood, Ill., a full-service packaging company specializing in custom-printed products. “We're seeing a real demand for green packaging, so we're focusing on environmentally friendly materials using significant amounts of post-consumer-recycled waste."

Some of the green gift materials Howard Packaging offers include natural kraft shopping bags made with up to 50 percent Post Consumer Recycled (PCR) content or up to 80 percent PCR with higher minimum orders; white and natural kraft gift boxes with up to 70 percent PCR; colored tissue paper with up to 40 percent PCR and natural kraft tissue made with 100 percent recycled material; 100 percent oxo-degradable plastic bags and film that will completely degrade in landfills; and ribbon made from 100 percent organically grown cotton. “Many retailers who use these products like to have them custom printed with specifications about the recycled material that was used in them, along with a little message such as ‘Because We Care About the Environment,'" says Watson. “It lets their customers know they are doing their part."

Another green alternative to gift packaging is the hand-crafted, eco-friendly gift bags, baskets and other items made by Baskets-n-Bags in La Cruces, N.M. Many of these items are specifically themed for the coffee industry, such as display and gift bags, baskets, trays and aprons.

All Baskets-n-Bags items are made from renewable, sustainable materials such as cotton, burlap or jute and are handmade by artisans from rural villages in India, Bali and Mexico. All items can be personalized with multi-colored logos and features such as matching colored gussets, Velcro®, interior/exterior pockets, or handles made of jute, bamboo or cane.

Photo courtesy of Planet Canit, LLC

Baskets-n-Bags carries three different types of snap baskets and pull-string baskets, which are so popular that they have been patented and trademarked. These completely re-useable baskets and trays come flat for easier shipping and storing, yet can be converted into gift containers at the snap of a button or the pull of a string.

Unique gift items from Baskets-n-Bags include coffee bean jewelry, recycled cardboard and plastic pens, buffalo horn trays and dishes, cotton “bread warmers" for keeping tortillas, rolls and other baked items hot, and customized greeting cards made from recycled paper decorated with real flowers and seeds.

“These items make attractive, one-of-a-kind gifts, yet at the same time are helping to preserve the environment and support underprivileged workers in Third World countries," says Baskets-n-Bags founder and owner Geetha Pai. “We also offer very small minimum orders, only 144 pieces, so that smaller coffee shops can afford them. And everything can be custom printed with your logo to create and sustain brand awareness."

Thinking out of the box
Boxes and bags are not the only options available for gift packaging. The re-useable tins from Planet CanitTM, a marketing solutions company in Highland Park, Ill., that specializes in custom-designed decorative tins, can make attractive conversation pieces even after you've enjoyed the product inside.

Examples of Planet Canit's distinctive container solutions include an elegant embossed tin for Oral FixationTM mints and a sleek sliding cylinder for The Pleasure ChestTM for use in the mini-bars of New York's most exclusive boutique hotels. In the coffee industry, Planet Canit recently designed a tin for Silver Joe's® Coffee Company that is so unique in shape (rather like a streamlined teardrop) that it has been patented.

Silver Joe's will be initially offering the patented can, filled with premium coffee, in limited quantities to select buyers in the adventure-based industry, according to a Silver Joe's press release.

A connection between Silver Joe's and Airstream®, a leading maker of travel trailers and motor homes, played a part in Planet Canit's design ideas for the new tin, according to Planet Canit founder Virginia Price. The shiny metal and aerodynamic shape of the tin echoes the aircraft-inspired, aluminum-clad bodies of Airstream's signature travel trailer.

“When it came to helping Silver Joe's with the design and manufacturing of its distinct decorative tin, Planet Canit had similarly lofty goals in mind. Silver Joe's gave us the opportunity to jolt the coffee business in an exciting new direction," says Price. “We knew that the potential to partner with Silver Joe's was great from the first moment we met them. They were mavericks looking to change the coffee game, and that's what we specialize in–marketers who are not afraid to be innovative.”

Planet Canit also offers a wide range of coffee and tea tins in more traditional shapes such as round, square, rectangular, oval and octagonal as well as novelty shapes with a variety of lids and closures. “Aside from our patented proprietary designs, any of our tins can be customized especially for your company," says Price. “We use your brand name, logo or artwork on them to make them entirely your own.”

If you are looking to spice up your gift section this holiday season, one of these companies is bound to have something, or can create something, to match your style. Brand your gift sets with the specialized, custom-printed items now available for an added touch.