Energice represents an advance for the Jel Sert Co. The packaging of Energice beverage, a half-liter flexible pouch with a recloseable fitment, is another advance--which the company hopes will bring it to the forefront of a packaging trend.
Jel Sert's slogan is 'Makers of Fun Foods.' Based in the Chicago suburbs, the company established itself as manufacturers and marketers of food products, including shelf-stable freeze-at-home freezer bars, juice drinks, powdered soft-drink mixes, puddings and gelatins. This core business remains the heart and soul of Jel Sert. Energice is a more 'serious' product: a fortified sports beverage for active consumers.
'We thought there was an opportunity to make the products a bit more functional, and potentially enter into some distribution channels and markets where we hadn't previously been,' says Matthew Ingemi, Jel Sert's vice president of consumer health care.
Energice came out in 2003 in a familiar format for Jel Sert: a freezer bar. An ambient-temperature gel in a flexible pouch came next, and the beverage followed in March 2004. Initial distribution was through GNC, the health food and dietary supplement chain.
'Our distribution and marketing method [for Energice] is truly viral,' Ingemi says. 'It's more guerilla, grass-roots marketing than a traditional, multimillion-dollar media campaign.' Jel Sert has since moved Energice into other retail venues that appeal to active consumers, like sporting-goods stores and bicycle shops. The product is just about to enter mass-market venues like mainstream drugstores and grocery chains.
The packaging was one of the most important aspects of the new Energice beverage. Jel Sert considered more traditional packaging. But the decision was to go with something unique.
'We decided that this brand was cutting-edge nutrition, which would best be reflected in cutting-edge packaging,' Ingemi says.
As it happened, Jel Sert was looking into acquiring a filling system for stand-up pouches with spout fitments.
'This stand-up, spouted pouch technology has been a project that's been ongoing since December of '01,' Ingemi says. 'It's a couple of years in the making. The delivery of this machine was dovetailing very nicely with the completion of the Energice RTD development.'
The machine in question is a pouch filler from Hensen Packaging Concept. It's a rotary, continuous-motion spouted-pouch filler--the first in the U.S., according to Ingemi--that fills pouches through the spout, instead of forming and filling them through an open seam.
Other elements of the Energice pouch were equally important. The film is a five-layer foil/poly laminate, from Kapak Corp., with graphics designed by local studio Maddock Douglas. The closure is a Smart Spout from Seaquist Closures, which uses a one-way membrane to prevent dripping and spillage. The consumer can use the fitment like a traditional straw, or squeeze the pouch like a sports bottle.
Jel Sert, in consultation with its suppliers, gauged the potential of spouted pouches as packaging for beverages and other liquids in the U.S. 'The decision to put Energice in a spouted pouch came after--not long after--our decision to acquire the spouted-pouch technology.'
Jel Sert has tried to allow room for that growth potential--literally. The pouch is filled, like all of Jel Sert's other products, in a 400,000-sq.-ft. manufacturing area that forms part of the company headquarters in West Chicago, Ill. The Hensen filler was installed in a former storage area, with plenty of room all around for accoutrements, or even a second filler if needed someday.
The Hensen filler is in an enclosed area that has the ventilation and other amenities to be a Class 100,000 cleanroom. It has not yet been certified or used that way, but the potential is there if Jel Sert ever puts a pharmaceutical product into a spouted pouch--either for itself or on behalf of a customer. The Jel Sert facility is a registered drug manufacturing site with the FDA, and they have been making medicinal foods and OTC pharmaceuticals in the plant for nearly 10 years.
The Hensen machine now runs Kapak pouches that are pre-fitted with spouts. They arrive at the plant hung on long, thin metal racks that the machine's operator simply lifts up and places into a side entry point. At the appropriate time, the system lifts the racks and deposits the pouches into the filler's turret, leaving the rack to be picked up and reused. Attaching the spouts on-site is an enhancement that Jel Sert is looking into, Ingemi says. Doing so would make storage and handling of the pouches easier; the primary obstacle is finding an inserter that will keep up with the filler.
The volumetric filler handles the pouches by the fitment and fills them through the orifice with a descending tube. A star-wheel removes pouches one at a time from the rail, at the same time dropping a filled pouch onto the conveyor below. A capper then applies and torques down a threaded cap, with the pouches making a complete revolution before dropping onto a conveyor belt and being replaced with an empty pouch.
Filling the pouches this way, instead of forming them, gives the system its speed, which tops out at about 250 pouches per minute. Jel Sert is now using only about half the machine's capacity--and most of it is for spouted-pouch beverages for a co-pack customer. Jel Sert's move into spouted pouches, and the decisions to leave lots of room for growth in the business, are testaments to the company's faith in the potential of spouted pouches.
'We believe that this packaging format is going to play a significant role in the beverage industry for years to come,' Ingemi says. 'And we wanted to be a part of that early on.'
Hensen Packaging Concept 011-49-4231-98470; www.hensen.de
Kapak Corp. 800-KAPAK-57; www.kapak.com
Maddock Douglas 630-279-3939; www.maddockdouglas.com
Seaquist Closures 262-363-7191; www.seaquistclosures.com
Pan Demetrakakes, Executive Editor
