A combination of Americans warming to British beer and innovative corrugated packaging  is helping a leading UK brewery gain an advantage in the highly competitive bottled ales market across the pond.

There is a quintessential view in America of how the British drink beer and Samuel Smith’s Brewery, which has been exporting beer to the United States since 1978, wanted to tap into this perception with its transit packaging when it decided to switch from the conventional  one colour boxes to highly decorative corrugated cartons with shelf appeal.

There are more than 3,000 breweries in the United States alone all vying to get their goods noticed by shoppers in liquor stores and supermarkets across the country. In this multi-billion dollar industry offering such a vast choice of home produced and imported beers, distinctive packaging is vital for products to stand out from the crowd.

Increasing UK exports is key to economic recovery and beer has an important role to play. According to a recent report by Barclays*, consumers in the United States are more inclined to buy products that are branded ‘Made in Britain’, making corrugated shelf ready packaging (SRP) the ideal marketing tactic to promote British goods.

To boost Samuel Smith’s sales campaign in the lucrative US market, its existing supplier created slick SRP solutions using four-colour printing, depicting images of shire horses pulling drays, for its full range of 12- and 24-pack of bottled beers and ciders that specifically targeted American drinkers.

Corrugated’s flexibility is popular with food and beverage brand owners as it offers critical supply chain efficiency alongside distinctive SRP that not only creates an on-shelf impact, but is more easily identifiable at goods inwards.

A Samuel Smith’s spokesperson said: “Our beer is renowned for its great brewing quality and the expectation is that the packaging should match the quality of the beer. Everything in the US is on a bigger scale than here. Products do get shipped about a bit over there so cardboard cartons are a stable way for moving fragile beer around.”

The Confederation of Paper Industries (CPI) says protection during transportation is corrugated’s primary function, but the industry’s ability to provide highly decorative transit packaging that can go straight onto shelves plays a huge role in attracting consumers’ attention in today’s competitive market, whether at home or overseas.

CPI’s Director of Packaging Affairs, Andy Barnetson, said: “Innovative designs on corrugated packaging is a very good marketing tactic. Colourful corrugated packaging boxes for beer have become mainstream and are another reason why the material is established as the supply chain’s preferred transit and display format.”

The absolute flexibility of corrugated is illustrated perfectly by the SRP designed for Samuel Smith, a version of which has also been rolled out for UK retailers. The transition from brown box to premium pack embodies the popularity of British beer.

*https://www.barclayscorporate.com/content/dam/corppublic/corporate/Documents/insight/uk-manufacturing-growing-abroad.pdf