Popcorn is BIG Business
Popcorn: it’s not just a snack; it’s a $13.6 billion industry on track to become a $21 billion behemoth by 2030. What’s driving this explosive growth? Convenience, health, and undeniable popularity. When the world’s largest supplier of popcorn needed private-label packaging to land a lucrative deal with Costco, they came to NewPoint.
As a grower and co-manufacturing partner for a number of snack enterprises and their brands (think Hershey’s SkinnyPop® brand, for example), Weaver Popcorn earned a private-label opportunity with club warehouse giant Costco, supplying its in-house Kirkland brand.
Weaver’s R&D team led a comprehensive product-development process, including sensory testing, to zero in on a new, healthier Kirkland variety that replaces butter with avocado-oil.
But Weaver still needed one key ingredient to close the deal.
Knowing retail buyers want a fully developed concept that includes how the new branded popcorn might realistically look on the shelf in its point-of-sale context, Weaver enlisted NewPoint for CPG packaging design expertise.
Based on hours of market research, across competitive brands and other avocado popcorn options, NewPoint developed a field of some 20 design comps, going the extra mile to project how the design would translate from bag to box to the pallet displays so common in Costco’s warehouse format.
Success in the avocado-oil pitch opened more concept opportunities for this blossoming Weaver/Costco partnership, and still more CPG packaging design, including a well-rounded comp board for a whole new Kirkland flavor—organic white cheddar.
Project Components:
• Market research • Competitive Research • Creative Brief Development • Food & Beverage Packaging Design