Working for
the French Président
Diversity is everything
We had, to be honest, no clue about packaging. Until one day, we got in touch with the Marketing Director of the Lactalis Group (Président’s brand owner) for Central Europe. He was working with one of the best French packaging design agency. But they did not understand the markets. On the other side, German agencies were unable to communicate with the French teams working for the group’s many brands. So Mr Valot was ready to take some chances. And so were we.
We learned everything about dry offset printing, complicated die cutting, white ink and opacity on plastic film, four color printing with only three colors (it sort of works), flexography, in-mould labelling— and quite a few more topics.
After 100 packaging projects for Lactalis, we have stopped counting.
Variations around an iconic cheese—the camembert
Beyond all technical constraints, of which there are many, designing food packaging is often an exercise in restraint. Consumers can be very conservative, and when one’s client sells tens of million units per year in Germany alone, two facts have to be kept in mind at all times:
- the product is absolutely mainstream, and its target group is, globally, neither hip nor progressive,
- there is a lot at stake, all the more since, for many products, there is no advertising beyond the packaging itself.
Full service package design
In certain cases, a packaging project can involve more than designing alone. Here, the photography was done in-house due to budget constraints (the Claudel brand is used in Germany by a hard discount retailer).
The wine glass disappeared at a point, while the grapes stayed: the client decided that it was no longer politically correct to show a fermented beverage on a cheese label
Complex pack shapes
Dealing with complex cutting dies is part of many packaging projects. These two packs—one for a heart-shaped specialty from Normandy, the other for mini goat cheeses sold in a roll— are typical in this respect.
Ads in trade magazines
Advertising campaigns in special interest trade magazines for food retailers and dairy products have been a logical consequence of our deep involvement in package design for the various brands.
P.O.P. leaflet displays
In many European countries, upscale food retailers and delicatessen include a real cheese counter, where gourmet consumers can choose from a vast selection of products and have their cheese sliced or cut to order.
In such locations, it pays off to run special promotions and supply the consumer with recipes and specific information.
