"A Wornick Success Story."

 

A large branded Consumer Products Company who is a Market Leader in its category with the Leading Brand in its segment approached Wornick with a desire to extend its brand equity from the standard glass jar into a more convenient packaging format. The company was looking for an Innovative way to inject new life into its existing product lines and to add value for the consumer. In partnership with Wornick the Company successfully developed a new product line of microwaveable multiple compartment meals. The products offered convenience and other value added features that support higher retail prices and improved margins. Product features include:

** Increased convenience
** Improved quality
** Multiple component addition
** Microwaveable
** Multiple compartments
** Disposable single serve tray

 

Wornick's skilled R&D and Culinary staff worked jointly with the Company to complete bench top formulation development and then plant production trials that demonstrated the quality improvement offered by Wornick's flexible packaging. A streamlined process for completing all of the critical product qualification tests was developed including:

** shelf life analysis
** packaging development
** shipping studies
** sales sample support

 

The project required a number of manufacturing capabilities to support the unique requirements of the products which were all offered by Wornick:

** Raw material inspection
** Temperature controlled storage
** Lot tracking
** Kettle Batching & Blending
** Multiple filling technologies
** Demonstrated container integrity
** USDA inspection
** In house process authority
** Auto check weighing
** Automated retort loading/unloading
** High speed cartoning
** Metal Detection
** Gas flush capabilities

 

This project also required a significant capital investment to install completely new production lines. Wornick provided flexible Financing options and key Engineering support services from equipment design to installation and start up, in order to meet the expected delivery dates for the planned product launch. Wornick's participation in the project reduced the Companies capital exposure by over 50% by being flexible enough to redeploy available infrastructure and existing blending, retort and packaging capacity.

 

The result of this partnership was a product launch that took only 11 months from concept to first shipment of Product, was within the project budget and is described by the customer as "the most successful product launch in our history". Demand for these new products has doubled initial estimates. Three years after the launch this satisfied customer has extended their contract and approved installation of a second line to support the growth of their products.