Package Design - June/July 2014 - 34

Each new ﬂavor features one or more natural
ingredients pureed cold.

ural foods in parallel with branding that would
emphasize the product line's focus on natural
ingredients. The design strategy was co-created
with Bluedog Design and was informed by feedback from young mothers.
"Our goal coming out of our conversations
with millennial moms was really to minimize
the label as much as possible," explains Michelle
Hayward, founder and president of Bluedog
Design. "They certainly wanted information,
and we certainly wanted to build the brand. But
we had the opportunity to really make the food
as unobstructed as humanly possible and
enable that to really shine through."
A square in the upper-left corner of the label
shows which stage the food caters to, while the
right of the label shows a photo of the specific
food in that jar, depicted in its raw form. The
center has the new Beech-Nut logo above a lowercase name of the flavor, both in white text.
The new logo features a tree growing from the
"H" in the Beech-Nut name. Beech-Nut's new
logo and branding emphasizes the company's
focus on already using natural ingredients in its
"classic" flavors, as well as introducing the new
100% natural line.
The label's transparent background and

sparse use of text further spotlights the foods'
ingredients by allowing more visibility of the
food in the jar. The bright colors of the food
serve as a de facto design element.
The minimalist approach to the label design
fits in with Beech-Nut's overall branding strategy, which uses the word "just" to emphasize
how close the product line is to homemade.
Beech-Nut branded its new purée production
process "just gentle cooking." Each new flavor is
named "just" plus its ingredients-such as "just
honeycrisp apples," "just butternut squash,"
"just apple and aronia berry" or "just spinach,
zucchini and peas."
eech-Nut created 40 different flavor
combinations for the brand's launch,
using ongoing input from target customers. For example, Dahlen said the
in-home research found mothers consistently using avocados-a healthy fat rarely
found in store-bought baby food-when making
food themselves. Other grains and vegetables,
such as quinoa and pomegranate, were included
in part because of feedback from mothers.
"The attraction to these ingredients was the
perception of their nutrition, in terms of being
nutrient dense, as well as the difficulty in making some of those foods," Dahlen says. "Mashing
up a sweet potato is a lot easier than trying to

The honeypot shape allows for better stacking
on shelf, with the base ﬁtting together with the
closure.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT Bluedog Design, www.bluedogdesign.com
Owens-Illinois, www.o-i.com

JUNE/JULY 2014

prepare pomegranate seeds for your baby."
Rather than the traditional baby-jar design,
Beech-Nut chose to package the natural foods in
a honey pot jar with a tapered shape. Made with
glass from Owens-Illinois (O-I) and sealed with a
closure by Crown Holdings, the jar also answers
consumers' desire for sustainable, recyclable,
reusable and safe packaging.
"Glass is pure and made from natural, nontoxic materials," says Shawn Welch, vice president of sales and marketing for North America
at O-I. "It is also safe-nothing gets through
glass or leaches out of it, and it doesn't interact
with the food inside."
The honey pot shape is also easy for consumers to hold and use, addressing potential breakage concerns associated with use of smooth
glass jars. "One of my favorite things about the
container is that its profile is very easy to hold; it
has a very good ergonomic grip and spoonability,"
says Raul Paredes, director of new product development for North America at O-I. "It helps with
that connectivity between parent and child."
Along with the packaging benefits, the glass
jar allows for consumers to more easily see the
product itself, and the variety of colors in the
new product line helps the food to pop visually
on shelf. The shape also makes it easier to stack
on shelf, because the closure on top fits securely
with the bottom of the honeypot design.
The back side of the jar has a nutrition information label, microwave instructions, and an
ingredient list that reinforces that the food contains just what's in the flavor name. The green
cap says "100% Natural" five times around the
skirt of the closure, while the top of the cap has
the new Beech-Nut logo surrounded by instructions in English and Spanish.
The new branding was launched with much
fanfare, as part of a marketing campaign that
used social media, print and television for messaging, and trade shows. Time will tell if the new
branding will capture the trust of millennial
moms and dads. l
For articles on similar topics, visit the Food
channel on PackageDesignMag.com

Crown Holdings Inc., www.crowncork.com

Package Design - June/July 2014

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