Sniffing Out Specimens of Great Package Design — From Cairo Alleyways to Düsseldorf's Interpack

By David Luttenberger

Premium cold-pressed olive oil receives a premium package with many well-executed details.

You know by now I'm an admitted packaging geek. I'm also a fan of foreign cultures. I've been fortunate in my personal, military, and professional packaging lives to have traveled to more than 40 countries.

Besides marveling at the sights, sounds, and people encountered at such destinations as Tiananmen Square in China, Tsavo Game Preserve in Kenya, or even the Eastern side of the Bekaa Valley, just across the Syrian border from Lebanon (don't ask why I was there), I often associate a country or experience with a unique aroma encountered there.

Among my fondest olfactory recollections are those from Egypt: the musky air inside the Great Pyramid of Khufu (no doubt the same uncirculated air Cheops' burial entourage huffed in 2560 BC); the overpowering scents emanating from the open doors of Cairo's countless perfume and extract parlors; and most vividly — even 15 years after being there — the thick, pungent smell of warm olive oils being hawked from open containers by Cairo's backstreet sidewalk vendors.

It wasn't until this past Interpack in Düsseldorf, Germany, that I again had the opportunity to drink in the marvelous aroma of Egyptian cold-pressed olive oil. But this time it was the package design — not the aroma — of New Salheya Olive Oil Mill's premium olive oil that attracted my attention.

Outwardly, the slender, oval-topped wooden box is as stunning as Cleopatra herself. Topped with a retractable, angular wood handle, the slender rigid box is draped in a cross-patterned papyrus. The papyrus is preprinted in black and white, over which hand-painted images of Egyptian olive pickers and sundry classic period images are depicted in warm bronze, rust, emerald, turquoise, and gold-tinted tones on all four panels. The papyrus masterpiece is then manually laminated to the box and lid.

The decision by El Salheya's designer and R&D leader, Abdel Wahab Zaky, to attach the dome-topped lid to the main structure using only the papyrus lamination makes for a seamless transition between the two pieces. A simple but elegant two-piece brass locking mechanism adorns the front panel.

And like the Pyramids, there are marvelous treasures to be found inside the box. Though glass by material, the deep amber-green bottles are an archeological pure-play on the type of vessels one would expect were used during the glory days of the Pharaohs. Imported from an Italian glass maker, the 250-ml and 500-ml cylindrical, handled bottles are decorated with paper labels printed with a combination of matte font undertones and striking silver leaf graphics.

But the structure's true design genius is in the details of the stopper components. Coiled five times around the bottle's fluted neck is a foot-long length of hemp-like twine. The twine is secured to the bottle with a hand-stamped wax dot. An ingeniously devised pattern snakes the twine around the bottle, over the top of a spherical wood and cork stopper, then back under the neck coils to form a loop on which an eight-paneled, four-color-process-printed hang tag is suspended. The tag profiles New Salheya's groves, the consistency of the soil in which its olive trees are grown, and the millenniums-old but still pure Siwa Oasis that waters its prized olive and date trees. The stopper top is also tagged with a second hand-stamped wax dot, providing an air of overt decoration and covert product security.

Inside the dual compartment box and layered around the larger of the two bottles is a free-standing, rough-edged post-card size sheet of hand-painted papyrus offering the product with the personal compliments of the New Salheya Olive Oil Mill. General manager Mostafa Hashem credits the brand identity idea to Doug Anderson, director at the Agriculture Lead Export Business (ALEB), a U.S. AID funded program with which New Salheya cooperates.

Combing the resources of international trade specialists, the ideas of package designers and production artisans, and the materials from suppliers in multiple countries to package a premium product of a small but world-class producer, New Salheya has eloquently capitalized on the rich traditions of its ancient Egyptian heritage. It is a well executed concept and design, from top to bottom from inside to out, that on any store shelf, in any country, in any language, would stop you in your tracks and compel you to say, "Wow! What a Package."

David Luttenberger, a certified packaging professional (CPP), is the director of Packaging Strategies, an intelligence briefing service for packaging markets, technologies, and businesses.. He can be reached at (610) 436-4220 (ext. 18) or at dluttenberger@packstrat.com.