Almond canister, pouch come to the Emerald City

Diamond Foods, Inc. has added Smoked Almonds to its Emerald line of premium snacks, bringing to 20 the number of products in the Emerald snack lineup. Packaged in a handy, on-the-go, 11-oz plastic canister that fits into auto cup holders, the nuts stay fresh with a twist-on lid that locks in flavor. Specifically distributed in C-stores, the almonds are also available in a 2.25-oz pouch. Graham Packaging Co. (www.grahampackaging.com) blow-molds the proprietary canister of polyethylene and uses a proprietary process to insert an oxygen barrier that preserves freshness. Shrink-sleeve labels from Fort Dearborn Co. (www.fortdearborn.com) are flexo-printed in eight colors. The peel-off seals are from Savoye Packaging (408/995-5514), and twist-on caps are injection-molded of polypropylene by Berry Plastics (www.berryplastics.com). Diamond's main processing facility in Stockton, CA, packs the canisters on a new, $2.2 million line that outputs 120 cpm. Diamond says the controlled-atmosphere, metallized film pouches, provided by TechFlex (www.tfpack.com), are made of a pouchstock from Deluxe Packages (www.deluxepackages.com), flexo-printed in eight colors on rolls of a proprietary film.