Published with the support of Package Design Magazine, this is a comprehensive guide to thinking outside the box to create practical, cost-effective, and eco-responsible packaging. With a broad ...
The Vapur reusable water pouch, subtitled “The Anti-Bottle,” is an idea whose time has long since come. As the backlash against overpriced and wasteful bottled waters continues to grow, friends and managing directors David Czerwinski, Brent Reinke, and Jason Carignan figured the timing was right for a versatile alternative.
“If you want to take sustainability to the next level, it’s in the pouch,” says Czerwinski. The directors believe they have put all the convenience features possible into the Vapur water pouch, and they also packaged it as sustainably as possible. The main features of the 16-oz. bottle are reusability, foldability, attachability, identifiability, freezability, and washability in dishwasher machines.
Carignan says the goal was to create an “irresistible convenience” that would entice active water drinkers. But the managing directors were not delusional that the product concept would sell itself on convenience merits alone. They also spent a great deal of time with the branding elements, color options, and packaging, and settled on Vapur because it combined the words vapor and pure. “You’ve got to create something that people think is fashionable,” says Czerwinski. “We’re going to build our brand first.”
Ampac Flexibles helped create the plastic pouch to have the strength and durability for repeated and frequent use. The pouch is composed of clear polymers with a dispensing fitment securely sealed to the top. When full, the pouch even stands like a PET water bottle, and a carabiner adds “attachability”—a feature that consumer research indicated was indispensible.
The Vapur branding on the pouch has the Vapur logo in a rotated vertical position, with two water droplets inside the “a” and “p.” On the bottom half of the pouch, droplets of different sizes create an impressionistic map of the world. The “back” of the pouch has a white field where the user can write his or her name, and the color-coordinated carabiner also carries the Vapur logo.
When the trio of managing directors began to think about the packaging, they knew they wanted to carry their message through to using the fewest materials possible. They also wanted the package to display both standing and on a peg and to ship as flat as possible. The recycled paperboard package is a one-piece construction with limited gluing and printing on only one side. The package is printed with soy ink and printed using wind-powered presses.
Since many of the product distribution will occur through the mail from online purchases, the founders wanted to carry their sustainability efforts into the mailers. They found recyclable, thin, padded white envelopes with high post-consumer recycled content. Shippers only need apply a white address sticker prior to mailing.
Under “The Movement” tab on the www.vapur.us website, statistics on bottled water, oil consumption, and world water needs bring home the need for more sustainable water-drinking habits. For instance, the website sites numbers such as the 17 million barrels of oil each year that make water bottles for the U.S. market and the 37,800 18-wheelers that deliver bottled water around the country every week. Instead, Vapur promotes filtered tap water and home water filtration systems. The "fold-and-go" Vapur pouch is the answer, the website concludes, “So it can go more places and fit in tighter spaces.”