Its new bottle design, developed with Sidel’s experienced packaging team, also reduced the amount of PET in the bottle by 30%, bringing significant cost savings as well as the environmental benefits associated with less raw material usage.
The Mexican pharmacy store chain had previously used third-party suppliers to provide the water for sale in its pharmaceutical stores, but recently decided that it needed to take full advantage of the continually increasing domestic market. The first step in the creation of the new brand was establishing the Innomex bottling plant close to the metropolitan area of Guadalajara.
To gain the flexibility to create its own branded water in various different sizes and formats, the company installed a Sidel Eurotronica FM-C48 filler and Starblend mixer at the Innomex plant, which was capable of outputting finished bottles filled with branded drinking water at speeds of 10,000 bottles per hour in the 1.5-litre format and up to 16,000 bottles per hour in the 330ml and 600ml formats.
To give the new brand – ‘Blue Bay’ – its own distinctive identity, Innomex wanted to create a whole new bottle shape design. The company turned to the Sidel packaging team, part of the company’s Sidel Services department, for assistance in the task, drawing heavily upon its extensive experience with brand and packaging design.
The result of this close collaboration was a strong and modern shape that could identify the new brand; yet, by significantly reducing the amount of raw material and resources used, could also give Innomex a competitive edge by reducing costs of the finished bottle.
The designed shape used 12g less raw material than the original bottle by the third-party supplier, which amounted to a saving of 30% PET?in total – a saving that was also reflected on the producer’s bottom line.
In addition to saving resources, the new shape has proved popular with the end-user. Sales have increased by 30% due to the product’s improved identity and better brand positioning.
Blue Bay Bottled water, in still and carbonated versions, is available for sale in the company’s 1,200 branches of Farmacias Guadalajara. Having achieved such a resounding success with its own bottled water, Innomex is now looking to expand further into energy drinks and isotonics.
Corporate director Rodrigo Arroyo, in acknowledging the part played by Sidel, said: “We knew we needed the right technology to be able to move confidently into bottled water production. We had a team of talented people, including the team from Sidel, who could ensure this project met our goals and ultimately would make our plant more productive.”
Mexicans are now among the biggest users of bottled water in the world, currently drinking an average per capita consumption of around 199.3 litres per year. In fact, bottled water is the fastest growing category in the whole Latin American market. In the years between 2013 and 2017, this market is expected to grow by another 5%.
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