The retail environment is changing, with greater emphasis than ever before on packaging that protects through the supply chain then sells the product on the shelf.  This is commonly known as Retail-Ready Packaging.

Retail-Ready Packaging is designed to help get products from the retailer’s stockroom to the shelf as effectively as possible.  In practice, it can bring benefits to both the retailer and the retail supplier, such as:

• Improved availability.
• Increased sales through better brand visibility.
• Improved store labour efficiencies.
• Reduced out-of-code losses through improved rotation disciplines.
• Potential to reduce damages.

For these reasons, we find more and more clients looking for help in designing and implementing retail-ready packaging solutions for their customers in the retail sector. 

Using Smurfit Kappa ‘Innotools’, we can devise the optimum pack based on the client’s requirements and our own assessment of a wide range of proven retail-ready designs from over 300 designers throughout the Smurfit Kappa Group.  We can also provide advice on automatic packing and case & tray erecting systems where new equipment is needed to cope with new pack designs.

Uniquely in Ireland, our digital sample printing service allows us to provide our clients with full colour, digitally-printed, functional samples of new pack designs for testing in the retail environment and approval by their customers.

Retailers’ requirements for food safety and hygiene are also becoming a key determinant in their choice of suppliers - and in those suppliers’ choices in sourcing packaging.  To ensure that our customers don’t get left behind, we have achieved BRC/IOP accreditation for 4 of our plants in Ireland.

If Retail-Ready Packaging is a concern for your business, then you should be working with Smurfit Kappa Ireland.