HP Indigo gives stellar yet sustainable packaging to Atta Girl

 Packaging is just as important as the contents inside and it becomes even more relevant when the product in context is food. Food packaging continues to evolve with each technological and scientific stride. Businesses can leverage these innovations to create brand value, ensure food safety, deliver on quality, and increase sales.

The brand…

The journey of Atta Girl started when a stay-at-home mom decided to turn her love for healthy eating into a healthy business. Atta Girl today offers seven batter variations, three chutneys, and one typical South-Indian filter coffee decoction.

Need for sustainability…

Sustainability is no longer just a word. It’s a way of life. Started in the 1920s in Finland, Huhtamaki prides itself on exploring and developing new opportunities across the world. Huhtamaki is one of the largest manufacturers of finished flexible packaging in terms of volume. Their motto is “Helping great products reach more people, more easily.” Their commitment to making packaging more circular has ensured that their partners are also adding their two-bit to making the planet more sustainable. It is no wonder, given their history of creating great packaging that they chose the HP Indigo 20000 Digital Press as their print solutions partner. The HP Indigo 20000 Digital Press offers unparalleled colour capabilities reaching up to 97% of PANTONE colors, thereby delivering endless possibilities for growth.

This game-changing digital press is the only digital colour printing process that matches gravure quality and is safe for primary food packaging. HP Indigo develops presses and inks that enable printers and converters to comply with regulations that meet industry standards and environmental credentials.

Challenges faced by Atta Girl…

• Durability: Atta Girl, first launched as Batter It, started their journey by using plastic packaging, which decreased the shelf life even further for a product that anyway had a limited shelf life.
• Spillage: Using plastic, the batter would always splatter and move in the pouches, which gives a very shabby look to the overall display of the product.
• Branding through packaging: How a product looks speaks volumes about its quality and given that the food business is fiercely competitive, Atta Girl knew that they had to make significant strides in order to fulfill that task.
• Product friendly packaging: Atta Girl hit their first obstruction when they realized that packaging for batter was not an easy task. This was because batter keeps fermenting on its own even when its packaged and needed significant headspace.
• Sustainability: The lifecycle of the packaging is also short. It goes into dump once the batter has been used and could harm the environment. Therefore, sustainable packaging is the need of the hour.

Solutions offered

Huhtamaki designed the five-panel pouch which offers multi-fold benefits and functionality.

• Branding: The first and foremost are the five panels that aid in creating impactful branding thus addressing the issue of brand enhancement.
• User experience: It consists of a pull-tab zipper that offers novel tear initiation along with easy reclose for multi-use. Apart from that, the move to Digital printing by Huhtamaki enabled them to better service.
• No more challenges in short run: The ease of placing orders for just the required number of pouches ensured that Atta Girl didn’t end up investing in just packaging and blocking funds.
• Reduced costs: Digital printing has dramatically reduced the initiation and set up costs that are associated with analog print methods.
• Sustainable packaging: Without a commitment to a MOQ, brands now have the freedom of market testing with multiple versions of packaging which enables them to sell at higher margins with more revenue. Without wastage on packaging inventory, brands have a significantly reduced impact on the environment.

Implementation & results

Huhtamaki devised seven different packaging solutions for Atta Girl using the HP Indigo 20000 Digital Press which is equipped with the HP Indigo LEP Technology—the future of print production. Of the seven, two migrated to cylinder printing wherein Atta Girl can now order them in bulk quantity. Packaging solutions for the remaining five SKUs are still being developed in the digital format. And the result was:

• More brand visibility: Atta Girl saw immediate results with customers sending messages to the founder complimenting her on the design, look, and feel of the packaging, lifting Atta Girl’s brand value many times over.
• Increased sales: Sales for Atta Girl increased considerably after the product was launched with the new packaging. Stores stocking the brand gave increased front shelf space for their products due to their vibrant packaging. Atta Girl reported an increase of 3X in their sales post the new packaging.
• Enhanced product durability: The five-panel pouch reduced spillage and leakage during transport and storage. Product protection needs to be the primary goal for packaging and Huhtamaki delivered the same to Atta Girl.