Savco wins with flexibility, speed, and quality using digitally printed packaging

This is a true David and Goliath story. Digital print is the slingshot. Creativity is the pebble.

Savco is a small fresh produce distribution company most people have never heard of. This family-owned company markets a little-known brand in a cost-sensitive, fast-moving, commoditized market against big, Goliath-like brands. And Savco is winning.

Savco's brand is H2O Melon. Yes, the product is water melons. If you can't name your favorite watermelon brand, you are like many consumers. You probably make your buying decision in the grocery store when you see the bin in the produce section. If the melon looks like it's fresh and high-quality, you buy it. Savco’s customer-centric, entrepreneurial CEO, Sav Tsoukalas, understands that the color graphics and imagery printed on the melon's corrugated bin play an important role in representing that quality to the retail shopper who makes the buying decision in seconds.

In forming his brand's bin decorating strategy, Sav knew that a single graphics design would not be sufficient. There should be a variety of versions, customized to the local market and maybe even customized to the retailer. And the designs should change frequently to reflect the freshness of the H2O Melon brand image. Historically, Sav knew that flexography was a desirable low-cost method to print high volumes of corrugated bins at low unit costs. But when he saw an artist's proposal for four new graphics designs for his produce bins, all he could see was $80k in setup fees and months of production time.

Fortunately, Sav connected with Georgia-Pacific's Hummingbird, the largest digital-print corrugated converter in North America. In learning about digital print, Sav quickly understood how H2O Melon could benefit from the flexibility, speed, and quality that water-based inkjet technology could offer: No plate or cylinder setup charges and production time of days rather than months. Vibrant color graphics that create real stopping-power in the store's produce aisle.

Hummingbird began producing short- and medium-run color graphics bins using its HP PageWide T1100S Press and volumes grew. Today, Savco and H2O Melon enjoy a new level of time-to-market agility and efficiency that isn't possible with flexo or litho printing. For example, Sav talks about how he floats ideas for new bin graphics by his broad LinkedIn network. He posts several options for new designs and asks for feedback. Based on this crowd-sourced voting technique, Sav is free to make his decision for the next design and without worrying about high setup costs.

Recently, in a presentation to the US Digital Print for Packaging conference, Sav discussed more proof points of his brand's new agility. He told the audience that he came up with a new graphics design on April 8. Hummingbird produced and shipped his newly designed bins by May 1.

Another advantage for H2O Melon is the easy recyclability of HP PageWide digitally-printed corrugated packaging, which can be collected along with general corrugated materials from stores for recycling. HP's food-safe, odorless water-based inks boosts Savco's sustainability profile and helps to meet the environmental stewardship requirements of its distributors.

Now with this advanced level of flexibility, Sav has had larger grocery store chains contact him asking to have H20 Melons distributed in their stores. On the supply side, he has even had more melon growers contact him asking to have Savco to adopt them as suppliers.

The brand now has an agility advantage over larger, more established competitors and business is growing. Savco's learnings are interesting to marketing-focused brands who want to be more responsive to market changes and customer demand. In recent weeks, the H2O Melon digital print story has been promoted to worldwide audiences through such media channels as Produce Business, The Packer, Packaging World, Digital Print for Corrugated magazine, Wide-format Impressions, and WhatTheyThink.com.

Savco's success story isn't really about digital print. It's about innovation and the freedom to quickly execute on a good idea. It's about building a brand strategy that capably reflects the attributes of the product. Finally, it's about the small-statured David standing toe-to-toe with the great Goliath and thinking creatively. For Savco and H2O Melon, creativity is the pebble. Digital print is the slingshot that launches it.