Packaging developers sorry to see breakthrough Hungry Jack syrup bottle go

Does packaging innovation have a down cycle? Is this what happens during a “cost reduction” project?

A number of packaging professionals involved in the development and implementation of the now-defunct Hungry Jack microwavable syrup bottle responded to our article about the brand’s Facebook fans lamenting its loss. Brand owner J.M. Smucker Co. replaced the squat container with a taller, non-microwavable bottle earlier this year.

Among the comments we’ve received:

“I developed the label for this bottle and it truly was a unique bottle (package) along with the heat sensitive label. I am very disappointed to read this and in the past would buy this product automatically. It will no longer be an automatic purchase.”

“I was part of the original design and development team at Continental Plastic Container when this innovative syrup container was developed and implemented and am named on the patent. At the time this was some interesting innovation, was a lot of fun and we developed a package that had some real use advantages. I'm sorry to see it go. It addressed a real need (microwave heating ability) was unique and gave the product a real point of differentiation. All things go through cycles.”

During my three decades as a packaging media journalist, I’ve learned a few unwritten rules about how things work in the real world. One of them is this: Packaging designers are often asked in six months to a year to “optimize” their recent innovations, usually to trim costs. Some smart developers have learned to keep back an idea or two so they have a winning plan for this optimization stage. The truer reality, though, is that designers under a deadline do their best. With more time, better ideas emerge and can—and should—be implemented during subsequent improvement projects.

Now retired, Gregory Katchmark, certified purchasing manager (C.P.M.), worked with Multifoods, owner of the Hungry Jack brand after Pillsbury and before Smucker’s. He tells me that, during 2002 to 2003, packaging engineers at Multifoods were asked to develop a new bottle design that worked just as well but would free them from paying the premium price charged by the bottle manufacturer, which holds the bottle patent. When the bottle maker found out about this cost-reduction project, it offered to optimize the existing bottle and cut its price to keep the business—which it did. Katchmark remembers the savings were about 36% or 37%.

“The value of the squat bottle—being able to fit in the microwave easily—was one of the key factors that kept shelf space for Hungry Jack for all these years,” Katchmark says. “It was never meant to be a ‘me too’ bottle. It was always a premium product. That’s how Pillsbury had approached it from the beginning.”

So Pillsbury benefitted from the original innovation and Multifoods got its bump from cost savings. That leaves Smucker’s where?