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Mike Ramey
Crown Beverage Packaging North America, a business unit of Crown Holdings, reports that independent soft drinks producer Polar Beverages of the US has adopted Crown’s advanced high quality print technology for its Black Jack brand.
The Black Jack family of flavoured teas and other drinks represents the first commercial application of Crown's high quality print technique in the Americas. This new pre-press to print process utilises proprietary separation techniques and special high resolution printing plates for improved dot spacing and superior reproduction of fine detail images and text.
The Black Jack line comprises four teas – Cannonball Black Iced Tea, Arrr Raspberry Iced Tea, Calypso Green Tea and Gunpowder Green Energy Tea, the newest addition to the line – plus two fruit drinks, Portside Fruit Punch and Mango Mutiny.
Each 16oz (473ml) beverage can has a distinctive design and colour scheme that conveys the unique flavours of that particular variety. The cans also provide some entertainment for consumers, with back panels following the adventures of Captain Black Jack Crowley and his faithful dog Grog, as they capture treasure and rare teas. The cans are topped with gold ends and black tabs for further differentiation at the point of purchase.
"Two trends drove the introduction of the Black Jack brand: the popularity of flavoured teas and 'big can' beverages," explained Polar Beverages Vice President Marketing Gerry Martin. "To distinguish ourselves from the competition, we needed standout graphics that would add a unique personality to our products. Crown worked closely with us and our creative partner, Hughes Design, to produce images with a spectacular level of detail." * Sales up 8.8% in Q1*
On Wednesday (16 April), Crown Holdings announced that its net sales in the first quarter of 2008 rose 8.8% year on year to $1.86 billion. The rise was primarily due to a gain of $119 million from foreign currency translation, coupled with higher selling prices to offset increased raw material costs. About 74% of sales were generated outside the US.
Gross profit in the first quarter was 19.1% up at $256 million, while net income jumped 50% to $27 million or $0.17 per share, including a charge of $0.01 per share for losses on the early extinguishment of debt.
Crown Holdings Chairman and CEO John Conway, commented: "The first quarter results reflect global growth in beverage can volumes, with particular benefit from a full quarter of operations by our new beverage can line in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, our new beverage can plant in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and increased capacity utilisation in the Middle East.
“We also benefited from Americas beverage can volume recovery and its improved mix, as well as continued improvement in European beverage can margins. While the first quarter is traditionally a seasonally smaller sales period, plant productivity and efficiency was high, and we believe we are on track for a strong year."
Based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Crown is an international leader in metal packaging technology. The group has operations in 42 countries and a workforce of more than 24,000.