`Olive Oil Package Design Top of Mind During Greek Crisis - Olive Oil Times

Olive Oil Package Design Top of Mind During Greek Crisis

By Marissa Tejada
Feb. 20, 2014 16:57 UTC
Elli Markaki runs the fam­ily glass pack­ag­ing com­pany Brothers Markaki.

Robust. Sexy. Those are two words Stratis Camatsos uses to describe the bot­tle that con­tains his new extra vir­gin organic olive oil, EVO3, from the Greek olive oil pro­duc­ing island of Lesvos. He also adds he selected the dis­tinct dark col­ored glass bot­tle for its func­tion­al­ity.

It pro­tects the oil from one of its ene­mies: light. That is why a con­sumer should always look to buy an olive oil that is pack­aged in either a dark col­ored glass or tin.”

Camatsos, like other Greek pro­duc­ers that are just break­ing into the com­pet­i­tive olive oil mar­ket, are con­sid­er­ing every option when bot­tling and pack­ag­ing their prod­uct.

The design and pre­sen­ta­tion of the bot­tle is impor­tant because it is part of your brand, your iden­tity,” says Camatsos.
See Also:The Best Olive Oil Package Designs for 2013
Plastic, metal tins or glass options are end­less.

I wanted to do some­thing a lit­tle dif­fer­ent with the appear­ance, and after search­ing, I came across Style Ltd. I was intrigued with their work of glass dec­o­rat­ing and it was the thing that I was look­ing for to make the prod­uct go to the next level. By using their color coat­ing tech­nique, we cre­ated an out­stand­ing look­ing prod­uct that stands out.”

Style Ltd. gen­eral man­ager, Christos Charizonas said he has seen a 40 per­cent boost in glass bot­tle sales thanks to new olive oil com­pa­nies, like EVO3, that aim to bot­tle their prod­uct with care and con­sid­er­a­tion. There are other details like whether you will use a cork or a screw top bot­tle. Everything is really con­sid­ered today.”

Charizonas says he presents clients with var­i­ous options in all sizes and in the most unusual shapes rang­ing from tall and skinny to round or square. He says clients may opt for clear bot­tles because they can be more eye-catch­ing to con­sumers who peruse the shelves at a local spe­cialty store or super­mar­ket abroad and want to see the exact prod­uct they are pur­chas­ing. Camatsos didn’t con­sider this option for his olive oil.

Seeing the color of the olive oil is not a use­ful indi­ca­tor of con­tents, and it does harm the oil as light reduces the shelf life. Imagine a bot­tle is sit­ting on a super­mar­ket shelf with the high beam lights shin­ing on it; no bet­ter way to make the oil ran­cid faster.”

Charizonas says Camatsos’s think­ing is one rea­son Greek olive oil pro­duc­ers are more inter­ested in the var­i­ous color coat­ing meth­ods. They want to know about other pack­ag­ing details like the tech­niques we use to add decals and prints. These touches are very impor­tant to ensure the prod­uct stands out above the com­pe­ti­tion.”

Style Ltd. has its own share of com­peti­tors in the mar­ket includ­ing Brothers Markaki. The com­pany which has pro­duced glass pack­ag­ing and bot­tles for var­i­ous prod­ucts includ­ing wine, soft drinks, water and food for more 75 years is also expe­ri­enc­ing a boost in busi­ness thanks to a new inter­est in glass bot­tling tech­niques.

Even dur­ing these tough times we’ve seen a 25 per­cent increase in busi­ness and we’re hir­ing every three months because Greeks are inter­ested more than ever in mar­ket­ing and pre­sen­ta­tion,” says Elli Markaki who runs her fam­ily busi­ness. Glass is the per­fect mate­r­ial for Greek extra vir­gin olive oil. They want to spe­cial­ize and present a great prod­uct from Greece and pack­ag­ing is part of that. We work with the client directly and they like that.”

Camatsos says the cri­sis helped moti­vate him to fol­low his dream of pro­duc­ing his own organic olive oil that also has a social and envi­ron­men­tal aspect behind it. For every bot­tle pur­chased Camatsos says one tree will be planted in a defor­ested area in Greece. With qual­ity pro­duc­tion, a mar­ket­ing plan and the right kind of pack­ag­ing in place, Camatsos has begun export­ing to the UK, Ireland and Belguim and is ready to present EVO3 to more dis­trib­u­tors and retail­ers.

The bot­tle and the logo are the first things that a con­sumer looks at on the shelf. Because you are not there in per­son to pitch your prod­uct to every con­sumer to con­vince them to buy yours, and since you only have about three sec­onds to grab the con­sumer’s atten­tion, you have to rely on your brand­ing.”

Olive oil pack­age design will be a topic at the 2014 New York International Olive Oil Competition sem­i­nars this April.


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