Del Monte Says 'We Can' ... With Five Billion of Them Every Year

The Del Monte brand traces its origins to California's Gold Rush days, a wild time when few would have bet against the yellow mineral as the surest ticket to wealth beyond imagining. By 1916, though, when a consortium of Golden State fruit packers formed the company that became Del Monte Foods, wiser heads could see that the truly precious metals would be steel and, eventually, aluminum--the materials that Del Monte today fashions into billions of cans for food sales in the billions of dollars.

No producer knows better than Del Monte that the advantages of packaging food in cans are hard to surpass. Metal cans are easy to make, fill, ship, handle, and store. Nothing blocks light and oxygen for long shelf life better than a can. Manufacturing efficiencies continue to drive cost out of the canning process. And, unlike many other forms of mass production, canning isn't vulnerable to being moved offshore; because consumer demand for just-picked freshness keeps the plants reassuringly close to the fields where the crops are grown.

Although Del Monte embraces other forms of packaging, it's no surprise that the company retains an intense loyalty to the simple metal containers that made it famous. As a result, package development at Del Monte begins with a simple question: How much better would a can alternative really be than the classic metal container we know consumers like and trust?

For Rich Rothamel, vice president-innovation and product development, any change in packaging must demonstrate that it can deliver an increase in "shelf pop for the upcharge"--more retail bang for the extra buck. While options like shrink labels, holograms, and unusual can shapes might work in certain marketing applications, he says, there's no such thing as spending extra on an innovation for its own sake: "There has to be a benefit to do it, otherwise it won't survive."

Clock starts ticking with picking

Quick to point out that Del Monte isn't sealed into a can-only mindset is its director of metal packaging services, Pete Douglas. He notes that five years ago, Del Monte was the first to take tuna to retail in pouches--proof of its readiness to deliver packaging convenience in whatever forms consumers want.

Del Monte has had great success with their easy-open cans, even using the pull-top lids on their entire line of 8-oz. fruit cans.

But, Douglas also says that no other kind of packaging would let Del Monte deal as quickly and efficiently with the "massive harvests" of fruits and vegetables that it must pack as soon after picking as possible. Thanks to metal containers, fresh produce like tomatoes and corn can go from "field to can" in just hours--a short-turnaround cycle that Del Monte's 17 production centers repeat to the tune of more than five billion cans per year.

As Del Monte's director of graphic and packaging design, Bonnie McFarland oversees projects in plastic and glass as well as in metal. She notes that what ultimately matters more than the choice of material is the preeminence of the brand. "The visibility of the Del Monte shield is one thing that will always attract consumers to our package," McFarland says, adding that the cumulative effect of seeing "a lot of green" in shelves full of Del Monte packages signals category leadership and increases appetite appeal.

Del Monte claims that two-thirds of its brands are number one in their categories, a combined strength that helps to propel the San Francisco based company to annual sales of over $3 billion. About two dozen brands, managed either in San Francisco or in the company's Pittsburgh office, encompass some 1,700 SKUs bearing high-profile names such as S&W, College Inn, Star-Kist, Contadina, and, of course, Del Monte. The Corporate Brands division provides store-branded soups and gravies. Del Monte also is a major producer of pet foods with 9 Lives, Gravy Train, Cycle, and other nutritional lines for cats and dogs.

Metal cans, principally supplied by Silgan Containers Corp. and Impress Holdings, remain the primary form of packaging for the brands intended for human consumption. Rothamel says that cans raise high quality expectations in consumers because shoppers know that the fruits and vegetables inside were packed just hours from the harvest with all of their freshness and flavor locked in. Other elements of the metal can's perennial appeal, adds Douglas, are that it's "always handy to have around," requires no refrigeration, and provides a "very stable" package.

What's the usage occasion?

When Del Monte opts for other forms of packaging, says Rothamel, the choice depends on how the company is trying to position or differentiate the product. If, for example, the objective is to enter a new market segment where the product "evokes a different usage occasion"-- in other words, when the food in the package is meant to be eaten somewhere other than at home--that strategy might recommend a move to a "non-can structure" for microwaving or on-the-go eating.

Even then, metal stays in the picture because consumers who buy Del Monte foods in non-can containers probably also are buying them packaged for home consumption in cans. The can's ubiquity helps it to transcend the limits of "usage occasions," a fact revealed in a survey of European shoppers cited by Douglas. In this poll, he says, canned beans and soups were named as the most recognizable of all "convenience foods."

Often, as far as consumers are concerned, there's just no way to outdo the advantages of packaging food in cans. Rothamel says that in Europe, Del Monte saw a large CPG company take its food products from cans to pouches and then back to cans after consumers failed to perceive a benefit in the changeover. Sometimes even Mother Nature herself seems to be on the side of canning. According to Rothamel, it's been found that tomato soups and other tomato-based products aren't as appealing to consumers when they're packed in plastic. The interaction of the vegetable with the can metal actually enhances color and flavor--a value-added improvement that no true tomato lover wants to give up.

In fact, about the only way to make consumers like cans better than they already do is to make cans easier to open. Del Monte began capitalizing on this preference in 1999 by converting its 8-oz. vegetable line to cans with pull-top ends ("Convenience Ends Boost Can Sales, Share and the Bottom Line," Package Design, March 2005). Double-digit sales increases ensued, and Del Monte's already dominant share of the 8-oz. canned corn market rose by 8.5 points. Rothamel says that easy-open cans also have helped to boost sales of Del Monte fruit products.

Though Del Monte is open to new packaging forms in all their brands, the package development process often begins with the question: How much better would a can alternative really be than the classic metal container we know consumers like and trust?

All eyes on sizes

Size preference is always something to watch in package design, and in canning, the market-driven trend clearly is toward smaller presentations. Rothamel says that the demand for cans in very large sizes is not growing, whereas standard cans "are gravitating more toward 15 ounces" as families shrink and diet-conscious consumers learn to prefer more modest portions. He adds that the increasing demand for single-serving sizes has opened a migration path to plastic, enabling Del Monte to do very well, for example, with fruit servings in four-ounce plastic cups.

Translating consumer preferences into sales-enhancing packaging is the responsibility of a package development team of about 30 people in San Francisco, in Pittsburgh, and in Del Monte research facilities in Walnut Creek, CA, and Terminal Island, CA. The team comprises groups for metal technology, secondary packaging, and graphics. The graphics group, under McFarland, includes design managers and print production specialists operating from the two main offices.

Like many corporate packaging departments, Del Monte's team doesn't engage in package design per se. That work--label design and implementation, comping, and sales sample fabrication--is outsourced to a pool of about eight creative agencies in San Francisco and New York. What the in-house graphics group provides, says McFarland, are project management and branding support services from conception to completion, including supervising print production. Her group also works closely with Del Monte's marketing department, offering insights for product launches and updates.

McFarland says that the pace of work is always brisk, typically with at least 10 major or minor projects ongoing in San Francisco and Pittsburgh at any given time. "There's always tweaking going on," notes Rothamel, as the packaging group tackles product launches, graphic updates, and sometimes, projects that drive changes across the entire spectrum of a brand.

Nothing beats nothing

Del Monte's packaging specialists put in that kind of all-out effort to comply with recently imposed regulations requiring the disclosure of trans-fat content on the labels of packaged foods. Rothamel says that Del Monte has a long history of supporting such changes--in 1971, for example, the company became the first major U.S. food processor to voluntarily adopt nutritional labeling on all of its food products.

The irony in this case, though, was that for most Del Monte products, there literally was nothing to report. Fruits and vegetables contain zero trans-fat, and zero was the number that Del Monte duly printed on thousands of labels. Another recent change in the rules for communicating nutrition information offers a more satisfying opportunity for an across-the-board redesign. This change is the government-sponsored restructuring of the well-known pyramid of basic food groups. Rothamel says that more than 90% of Del Monte food products fall in the middle of the pyramid structure--a healthful fact that the company will be happy to share with consumers by updating its package graphics accordingly.

Apart from generalized campaigns like these, the package development timetable at Del Monte depends on how much consumer research has to be done in connection with the launch. McFarland says that at the fastest, the group can turn around a new package in 16 to 18 weeks, including three to six weeks of research.

Research points to particular consumer trends that the in-house team and the external creative agencies should keep in mind. But, common to all projects is the goal of keeping freshness and trust--the core virtues of brand equity--simple and clear. This is why, McFarland says, the first thing consumers must see and respond to in the design of any Del Monte package is the iconic shield, which has undergone a number of dimensional adjustments and other "subtle changes" over the years to keep it as vibrant as it is familiar.

Within these guidelines, every Del Monte product line can express brand equity in its own way. A new product, Garden Select tomatoes in glass jars, uses what McFarland calls a "tiny" little label to attract attention with a minimum of graphical real estate. It works because a tiny label doesn't block the view of the enticingly fresh contents. In contrast, the Organic line, also newly launched, will use very appetizing graphics and a prominent rendering of the shield to engage shoppers who favor naturally grown foods.

McFarland says that Del Monte likes relevant category experience in the creative agencies it works with. But, valued even more are the ability to think strategically and flexibility to accommodate changes in plans and schedules. Del Monte believes in partnering with its creative providers--it doesn't merely hand them a design brief and walk away. In return, says McFarland, "we expect them to push us creatively--even to make us a little bit uncomfortable--as they help us to think outside the box." Outside the box, yes--but at Del Monte, never for long outside the can.