Whether you’re a beer buff, a whisky connoisseur or a wine snob, there’s sure to be something to wet your whistle at London Packaging Week 2024.
This is as the beverage industry is to be one of the most vibrant markets for packaging to be showcased when London Packaging Weekreturns this September.
From craft beers and luxury wines, to gin, whisky and other spirits, there’s no end to the number of drinks for consumers to pick and choose from today. As the market continues to grow, the volumes imbibed increases, demand rises for interesting flavour profiles, and new products enter the market, so the variety of beverage packaging is on the up.
Whether you’re after cans and bottles to sink drinks directly from or need something sturdier and fancier for shipping and gifting, let London Packaging Week be your sommelier for the options available to you.
Bottoms up
Glass remains one of the most popular vessels for beverages, by virtue of being infinitely recyclable and incredibly versatile. It can be blown into a multitude of shapes and designs, each having their own benefits.
Croxons (G44) has been serving beer brands with such vessels for more than 150 years. Different shapes and sizes come in a range of colours that can be coupled with crowns, swingtops and other closures to match. For example, the design of the 1000ml ‘Classico’ features a reverse taper to the base and provides elegance and a more feminine feel. The 500ml ‘Tall Beer’ is a modern and sustainable beer bottle. Available from stock in amber, white flint, and green glass, the bottle itself has been right-weighted down to 285g. This makes it one of the lightest beer bottles on the market but without the loss of structural integrity. This weight reduction means over 450 tonnes of glass have been removed from the production process.
‘Longneck’ is a bottle design from Dekorglass (E64). It has been designed to reflect the wants and desires of today’s discerning drinkers and capture their attention with an unconventional design and a neutral glass colour that be customised with any hue. This differentiates it from the dark glass that is often used for beer and wine bottles to protect traditional light and dark liquors, which are more sensitive to light exposure. For vodka, gin and other spiced or floral liqueurs, ‘Lina’ is a shape that calls back to the Roaring Twenties whilst suiting current and future retro trends.
Anyone who has visited the Museum of Brands in London will know that tin is another material that has been ever-present throughout the history of packaging. However, today’s tins differ greatly from the preservation tool of yesteryear and are now highly decorated and desirable. From outer sleeves to complement the bottles held within, to luxurious presentation tins for high-end tea, coffee and hot chocolate, they are another worthy consideration. Tinplate (G42) already supplies a number of brands and retailers with fully bespoke and premium tin packaging. These are used again and again, increasing the value to your brand as well as preserving the integrity of the product.
Wood is also being increasingly used creatively used to turn boxes into works of art. Retail Pak (G24) has previously created a unique presentation box constructed of nearly 40 individual pieces of wood, joined together in such a way that they sequentially move to unveil the bottle within. This project for Trust Me Vodka was intended to create a pack that would be an eye-catching addition to any point of sale and be a keepsake after the product is finished. It was specifically developed and prototyped by hand to deliver a result that encourages interactivity and showcases the bottle inside in interesting and suggestive ways.
Box-igami
Similarly, many are innovating with fibre-based substrates for beverage packaging. The rise of paper wine bottles has been a regular topic at London Packaging Week gatherings in recent years, for example, although there are many other developments that will appeal to the beverage industry.
Moulded paper packaging from Revation (D86) is made from 100% biodegradable materials such as pulp, sugarcane and bamboo. The ‘Nostalgia’ product perfectly fits to the shape of glass bottles, adding to the existing visual appeal of labelled wine bottles and other glass receptacles with a natural and delicate finish perfect for gifting.
A fan concept from Falconer (E54) is an example of interesting and innovative ways to display and gift drinks. Using gin as the basis for the concept keepsake design, computer-aided design has been used to create a box that fans out, mimicking the graphic of the flamingo featured in the design. This is complemented by multi-height embossing and debossing of the metallised board to enhance the visual appeal of the box.
Deluxe packaging specialist Knoll Printing & Packaging (G40) offers coffrets wrapped, for example, with black custom embossed soft touch paper and lined with beige faux suede. A signature metal plaque sits on the outside door, whilst inside, the background faceted mirror glorifies the bottle.
Vrijdag Premium Printing (K30) has a rigid box with a hinged lid that is also perfect for gifting or presenting products. Manufactured out of solid cardboard and decorated, the hinged lid can be placed on the short or long side of the opening. An optional magnetic closure is incorporated under the printed surface, making it invisible to the naked eye.
With its work for Chivas Regal Scotch Whisky, rigid box specialist Pollard Boxes (J60) has delivered beverage packaging that is suited to displaying, retailing, shipping and gifting.
This bespoke presentation box has been specially created for the brand’s limited-edition Chivas 18 Ultimate Cask Collection, a travel retail exclusive reinterpretation of its renowned blend Chivas 18.
The box has been designed to combine high-impact on-shelf presence with an enhanced opening experience for the consumer, while ensuring the bottle remains fully protected throughout the supply chain. It is manufactured in Miri aluminium paper and uses a variety of decoration techniques including printing in eight UV colours, gloss spot UV, matte spot varnish and embossing.
Another example is the work of Pusterla 1880 UK, a division of Pollard Boxes, for Glenfiddich’s Winter Storm, which is intensified in ice wine casks and demands packaging to match. The presentation box here features an eye-catching and distinctive all-over white and grey frosted appearance to differentiate it and emphasise the premium nature of the whisky. The snowflake-like finish is achieved through two-colour litho printing on white matte uncoated paper, coupled with silver hot foil stamping. All-over embossing helps achieve a soft touch texture and bronze fluted foiling is used to highlight specific elements of the design. Whilst vacuum-formed inserts at the top and bottom hold the bottle securely in place and ensure its correct orientation, display of the product is enhanced by two magnetic doors at the front and back of the box, creating a see-through effect.
This is a snifter of the beverage packaging options that await attendees at London Packaging Week 2024, which takes place 11 & 12 September at ExCeL. Registration is now open.
This article is part of a series published ahead of London Packaging Week 2024, outlining products, trends and industry developments to look out for at the show.