The creative suite at Parkside
Historically best known for its tobacco packaging capabilities, Parkside is fast becoming a leading edge designer of future flexible packaging solutions. Last year saw the company make a distinct move to becoming a specialty packaging provider for the broader FMCG marketplace.
With the European tobacco market declining in recent years, Parkside has been keen to minimise any impact on business and has developed a new strategy that focuses on product innovation complementing its recognised strength in solutions for the tobacco market.
To drive the repositioning, the company has developed its new APEX innovation strategy – APEX being an acronym for Advanced Packaging Expertise – to structure its new product development processes. Bold ideas and clever thinking are driving the business forward by focusing employees on improving products, services and processes across the business to offer the packaging industry a diverse range of high quality solutions.
Parkside understands that creating and developing high value, differentiated products for new and emerging markets is the key to a successful future for the company. By combining its range of technical skills and competencies within flexographic printing, specialist lamination, laser scribing and smart packaging technologies, it can deliver value-added packaging solutions to brands, retailers and converters.
Packaging expertise
The company’s technical innovation skills and technology portfolio are backed by investment in a new product development suite and laboratory facility, which has just been opened at its headquarters in Normanton, West Yorkshire.
The new facilities allow customers and partners to visit the company to discuss new pack and product launch concepts with the APEX innovation team in a contemporary creative space. Equipped with the white board, video and projection capabilities, the new creative suite has been established to aid the flow of ideas and bring concepts to life.
Investment in a fully equipped laboratory with in-house reprographics support, pack testing, prototyping and digital printing capability, also enables the APEX team to move from concept to sample while customers are still on site.
Steve McCormick, new product development director, said, ‘The APEX innovation team manages projects from concept to consumer, delivering fresh thinking innovation and development with speed to market front of mind.
‘This new facility is incredibly important to us being able to demonstrate our capabilities with our customers and those brands that have visited us already have been very impressed with the approach that we’ve taken.’
The new facilities also allow a new level of scrutiny for Parkside products. Prior to any launch, the company can now put all products through an in-house testing procedure to ensure that packs are fit for purpose and fulfil the expectations of both the brand owner and the consumer.
The company works closely with customers to ensure the correct packaging design is used to achieve the required expectations, driving customer loyalty through excellence in product, process and service.
Mr McCormick said, ‘Parkside is constantly looking for new ways to innovate, grow and deliver advanced packaging solutions that add value to our customers’ businesses. Where we can’t supply the whole solution, we work effectively with supplier and converter partners to make it easy for customers to do business with them.’
Sustainability considerations
There is also a growing demand for sustainability considerations within packaging design. In Europe, there is significant focus on the end of life scenario for packs and increasing awareness of the need for recyclability and compostability.
From coffee pouches to confectionery packaging, the APEX team has developed a range of paper and film barrier duplex and triplex lamination structures under the brand Park-2-Nature that are fully accredited to Vincotte OK Compost Standards for both home and industrial composting of packaging. Mr McCormick said, ‘Parkside is the first flexible packaging company to produce a compostable triplex laminate structure, which is ground-breaking for the industry.’
This means that environmentally aware brand owners, packers and retailers have a choice of flexible packs that can be disposed of by consumers, avoiding landfill and without any detrimental effect on the environment.
Managing director Nick Smith said, ‘We are a company that is really changing the game in specialty packaging, combining a number of technologies and competencies to deliver the value-added solutions that brand owners are looking for.
‘The company is going from strength to strength as a result of our APEX innovation strategy. We understand that speed to market in today’s fast paced commercial world is crucial, so the service we offer is built on our flexible approach to business and the solid supply-chain relationships we have established.’
He continued, ‘The future looks extremely bright. We have continually invested in technology innovation and development of strategic partnerships, generating unique solutions and unrivalled growth opportunities. We have established ourselves in the flexible packaging sector and we are now looking to leverage our technologies into specialty products and packaging. This sector is growing rapidly and we are perfectly placed to offer brand owners, retailers and converters a unique solution to their needs.’
Intelligent packaging
Parkside has recently launched an intelligent packaging solution – an embedded image technology that can be printed on packs to enable consumers to connect directly to the retailer or brand via their smartphone or tablet.
Developed under the brand name, APParition, the technology allows an embedded image to be hidden within existing pack graphics. The image is invisible to the naked eye but detectable by most modern mobile devices. This avoids the need to include bulky QR codes on pack and frees up space for brand graphics.
Once the pack is scanned, consumers can access recipes, nutritional information, sourcing details, vouchers, competitions and more. Connectivity can happen in store or at home giving users complete flexibility.
Included in the design of the app is the ability to incorporate sound files which enables hard of hearing or ageing consumers to hear the pack ‘speak’ to them to receive key legal or nutritional information as needed.
For brands and retailers, the technology also provides an enclosed loop for CRM data collection and analysis, leading to better and more productive customer relations in terms of sales and service.
The data generation capability enables a better understanding of consumer behaviour, allowing tailor made marketing messages to individuals based on the data collected. A further key benefit for retailers is the ability to drive consumers around their stores to purchase complementary goods, via offers and recipes, enhancing the ability to upsell to the consumer at the point of purchase.
APParition can also be used for anti-counterfeiting purposes to increase brand security and is therefore particularly attractive to alcohol, tobacco and high value categories.
The downloadable app is linked to a specifically designed website or the company standard landing page and includes up to eight pay offs for completely flexible use by the owner; the back end landing pages also being completely modifiable without the need to change the embedded image on pack, saving excessive reproduction costs.
Head of sales Paula Birch said, ‘As the packaging industry moves forward, a new and innovative way to provide key promotional messages and product information is through consumer interaction directly with the pack. The APParition technology creates a better understanding of customer behaviour using the latest smart phone and tablet technology and its findings can benefit the entire packaging supply chain.’
Mr Smith concluded, ‘The past 12 months have seen Parkside enter a new, exciting yet challenging path – with the upgrade of the innovation team and product development strategy to our new website and branding. Our core objective is to become a leader in the packaging industry, recognised for being at the forefront of developing industry-first innovative solutions.’
The APEX team is continually looking at what the market needs and how Parkside can deliver practical cost effective solutions. Parkside is one to watch; with metal free RFID tags, anti campylobacter coatings and aroma burst solutions being just some of the future concepts currently in development.
