Smoke Haus Packaging Upgrade: what’s the real story

Smoke Haus Packaging Upgrade: what’s the real story

(2min read)

We’re thrilled to bits our new sleeves are now out in market, the feedback is abundantly clear: Its a major step forward!

For those interested in the story, we’ve laid out some insights into our strategies and responses to feedback since we have launched.

Smoke Haus Family packs

Our launch packaging was a fairly basic ‘Deli’ style, for a few reasons…

Our initial target retailers were (and still are), fruit grocers with some specialist offerings, like a spot-on Deli, fresh coffee, or a juice bar.

In these stores, basic Deli labels are quite acceptable, in fact many store owners didn’t think we needed to change the labelling at all and were just adding unnecessary cost. Now that they have seen the new packs, everyone agrees the look is so much better.

Original launch pack labelling

We knew some products would need tweaking, and needed to be flexible

Its rare to get every product perfect first go. As a start-up we didn’t want to spend $$$ on product specific artwork yet, relying on printable labels that gave us the flexibility to change and change fast with minimal cost.

We’ve made some product recipe tweaks based on feedback, and having the ability to print ingredient declarations and nutritional panels in-house allowed us to turn-on-a-dime and do things like:

• Reduce the heat in the Pulled Chicken by removing the chili flakes,
• Reduce the spice intensity in the Smoked Whole Mushrooms, and
• Make process improvements to the Pork Belly Bites, Brisket and Pulled Pork Bites

We knew the products in the range and probably even pack formats might need to change too

Our suite of 1^st launch products has definitely changed, and will continue to change in response to Customer needs and preferences

• We have deleted the chicken wings. While they are fantastic products (most people that tried them loved them), but they just didn’t sell. Feedback says its to do with messiness! They’ll still be getting a run at home on the smoker, but we had to follow the golden rule: “Make products people want to buy!”
• We created a smaller pack format, we call it the Duo as its designed for 2 people.

The Duo was in response to people who aren’t feeding a family or entertaining, and don’t need so much smoked goodness in one go. It also lowers the price point of some of the more specialist and expensive products, lowering the barriers to purchase. The Products now in the new Duo format are:

• Pulled Mushroom Bites
• Smoked Whole Mushrooms
• Pork Belly Bits

• We’re in the process of releasing a Duo pack for Pulled Pork and Pulled Chicken, for those who don't need the larger Family pack

The sleeve needed to be functional as well as look good

We took an initial concept to Serengeti Print Group to develop the concept, and worked through 3 versions before finally settling on a full length pack sleeve

Packaging R&D, this was version 2 of 3 concepts developed

The final sleeve format has numerous benefits for us and our customers:

• Sticking labels to vacuum packed product will never look beautiful, sleeves are where its at for premium pack presentation.
• The two sleeve formats had to be carefully designed to fit the varying product shapes within each pack format.
• It’s easy to remove and able to be kept for reference while the product is being prepared, which was not an option before.
• There are structural advantages: some packs were bending when there was only 1 or 2 left in the shelf-ready carton (smoked mushrooms and pulled chicken: guilty!)
• The full-length sleeve manages the ‘flap’, which is best tucked away, to be opened during preparation.
• It allows improved product specific messaging of key features, as well as recipe ideas for each product. With the ticket label now on the back, the front is now totally designed for shelf-appeal and browsing information.
• The new sleeves are fully recyclable, so we’re still on minimal packaging.

We wanted more effective packaging messaging:

No-one is great at everything, and we realised we need to be better with the effectiveness of our packaging messaging.

Jeff did some brand messaging workshops with DMS Creative, a prominent Toowoomba Branding Agency, which followed into the design work for the new sleeves. This was a great process, and included features such as:

• Pictures of Food! We eat with our eyes first, and just love the top-down table shot Kat Lynn from Foodie Shots did in our launch shoot: its now the background and tells our story so well.
• Clear product identification in MUCH bigger fonts
• Clear core messaging:
  • Real wood-smoke
  • All Natural
  • Nothing Artificial
• Improved icons for ‘heat & eat’ and ‘prep time’, one of our best advantages!
• Product specific preparation times, rather than a generic ‘ready in under 10 minutes’.
• Product specific usage suggestions, with 4-5 easy-delicious usage ideas for each product now on front of pack for browsing.

We also love the cool little things DMS Creative did, like:

• Used our ‘smoke curl’ in the black background,
• Brought in wafts of wood-smoke on-pack,
• Created icons for the food type: Mushrooms, Pork, Chicken and Beef,
• Highlighted the ‘Family Pack’
• Used the black vertical ‘tram lines’ to offset the black pouch at the top and bottom
• There’s probably another 4 or 5 things the designers are really happy about that we haven’t even noticed yet!

All in all, a big WIN for everyone,

Why not check out our new look, product range, stockists and easy-delicious recipes at https://dfsmokehaus.com.au, and see what all the fuss is about!

Jeff is pretty happy about the way our products now look instore!

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