by kimberly j. decker may 13, 2015 0 commentsmore about andrew reynolds beverages danilo zorzan ecuadorian rainforest llc kimberly j. decker steve siegelemail print1 >from added flavors, bubbles, and vitamins to, quite simply, pulling off the marketing coup of selling consumers something they could get from the tap for free, water marketers have captured consumers&rsquo interest by continually presenting them the world&rsquos most widely consumed beverage in an attentiongrabbing new light. only in recent years, however, have they presented it in a new package the paperboard carton.barriers to entryactually, water is somewhat late to the paperpackaging party. &ldquoit&rsquos true,&rdquo says andrew reynolds, president of operations, icebox water cold spring harbor, ny. &ldquoyou see milk, juices, and, a little farther afield, soups in boxed packaging.&rdquo so why no water until recently he cites two driving forces that kept the carton closed, so to speak, until around 2007&mdashwhen his company&rsquos product debuted.first was the engineering challenge. &ldquojuices, milk, and dairy are much more viscous fluids, meaning that they&rsquore thicker and cannot permeate the paper used in box containers,&rdquo he explains. not so water, which easily soaks through paper, &ldquocreating a soggy mess,&rdquo he says. and though earlier generations of cartons incorporated wax liners to prevent leaking, that layer hampered, or even prohibited, recycling. newer package designs like the one his company uses helped square that circle. &ldquoit&rsquos paper lined with a very thin aluminum barrier and binding layer,&rdquo he says, which not only holds water with no threat of leakage or package disintegration, but is readily recyclable with the right facilities, too.but beyond the engineering hurdle lay conceptual barriers to drinking water from a box, as well, he says. &ldquoconsumers just haven&rsquot been accustomed to it,&rdquo he says. their resistance, however, is beginning to crumble.danilo zorzan, product director for packaging supplier tetra pak são paulo, brazil, senses the shift, although he notes that in the economywater market, &ldquothe role of packaging in attracting consumers is relatively low&rdquo and that the norm is still pet polyethylene terephthalate bottles. even for premium products, the need &ldquoto show the purity of the water within&rdquo dictated packaging transparency. but at long last, he says, cartons &ldquoare making inroads into the water sector.&rdquopaving the waymany credit cartonborne coconut waters with paving the way for &ldquoplain&rdquo boxed waters. see sidebar below. and it&rsquos hard to ignore the influence that coconut water has had. &ldquoworldwide, the number of product launches in the coconutwater sector has more than quintupled,&rdquo zorzan says, rising 540 in the past five years alone. globally, estimates place the market&rsquos value at about &euro220 million, with brazil and the united states accounting for most of the consumption and growth.zorzan says that tetra pak was the first company to introduce aseptically packaged coconut waters capable of withstanding longterm storage and of being packaged without losing their native texture or nutritional value. and as coconut water has evolved from a niche product to an increasingly popular drink, he says it&rsquos moved boxed packaging along with it.that&rsquos spread the medium&rsquos advantages across the water category, zorzan says, and he lists product differentiation as principle among the benefits. &ldquocarton packaging is relatively novel in the water market,&rdquo he points out. &ldquoit provides good branding opportunities, stands out on the shelf, and offers an excellent drinking experience for onthego consumption.&rdquo add to that its improved ergonomics, lightbarrier properties, and its reliance on a main resource&mdashpaperboard&mdashthat&rsquos renewable and what he calls &ldquoan innovative alternative to the default of glass or plastic bottles,&rdquo and you have a winner.so with companies like icebox having cleared the ground for paper cartons within the water sector, other water marketers are following their lead. but far from seeing the new entrants as nibbling away at his company&rsquos slice of the market, reynolds believes they&rsquore expanding the whole pie. &ldquowe welcome the likeminded companies and believe this is more than a trend,&rdquo he says.socially conscious cartonsthat said, what&rsquos in the carton for consumers, other than the novelty factor for one, reynolds says, &ldquowithout changing their behavior, they get to consume a product with a much smaller carbon footprint compared to plastic bottles.&rdquopart of that reduction comes from distribution efficiencies. namely, his cartons ship flat, allowing 1.05 million empties to fit a 53foot trailer. by contrast, that same trailer could carry only 95,370 empty plastic bottles, &ldquomeaning it would take 11 trucks to get the same amount of material&mdashempty 500ml plastic bottles&mdashto the copacker for filling compared to one truck of our flat shipped cartons,&rdquo he says. even better, while bottles and cartons often require shipment to just such a copacker for filling, icebox fills its cartons at the water&rsquos source&mdashtrue north springs in canada&rsquos notre dame bay&mdash&ldquoso there&rsquos no additional transportation of the water,&rdquo reynolds says.the cartons are also revolutionary in being 100 recyclable where facilities exist&mdasha quality that&rsquos as important to reynolds as it is to mindful consumers. &ldquoplastic pollution is a major problem,&rdquo he says. &ldquotoo much is used and not enough is recycled.&rdquo paperboard cartons help correct that imbalance by reducing the quantity of plastic that enters the waste stream in the first place.and though plastic bottles are largely recyclable, too, only about a third actually get recycled, reynolds notes. of course, his ideal would be for all consumers to recycle all of their beverage packaging, but with 76 of his cartons coming from paper&mdashitself sourced mostly from sustainably managed forests&mdashhe takes solace in knowing that if the cartons do wind up in a landfill, at least their paper portion will break down, the aluminum will eventually oxidize, and only the remaining plastic will persist.embracing changewith so much going for paper, then, what are we waiting for the barrier, reynolds believes, is consumer education. &ldquoconsumers as a whole are unfamiliar with the product and may require education as to the importance of sustainable packaging solutions,&rdquo he says. and once we can get them on board, the incentive will be there for marketers not only to serve their consumers, but to put a dent in what he calls the &ldquoplastic pollution problem&rdquo at the same time.also readtop tips for formulating healthy beveragesturmeric beverages, yellow or not slideshowsidebar going coconutstaking measure of the coconutwater phenomenonwe know it may be hard to imagine a time before coconut water. call it the &ldquob.c. era,&rdquo if you like. but steve siegel, vice president, ecuadorian rainforest llc belleville, nj, can, in fact, recall that bleak span of years before the biggest beverage trend to hit beverage aisles since evian first broke.&ldquoit wasn&rsquot that long ago that sales of coconut water were dragging,&rdquo siegel reminisces. and yet when category pioneers hit the scene&mdashoften in aseptic paperboard cartons, if not reliable old cans&mdashthe waters, which are actually the clear liquid tapped from young green coconuts, &ldquohad only a meager following&rdquo among dedicated healthandwellness consumers, he says.how things have changed. &ldquotoday,&rdquo siegel muses, &ldquothe industry is more alive than it&rsquos ever been.&rdquo citing euromonitor reports, he predicts that the market for coconut waters will top 1 billion &ldquoin the very near future,&rdquo he says.and it&rsquos no mystery why. today&rsquos beverage space is a battleground, with everyone from celebrity chefs to city councilmembers to publichealth sages pointing their fingers at sugary sodas, sports beverages, and pseudojuices as culprits in what some call a national obesity epidemic. coconut water, with its low caloric content, naturally sweet taste, and rich supply of electrolytes, is a naturemade alternative fit for healthconscious consumers desperate for drinks that &ldquoquench thirst while also delivering vital nutrients,&rdquo siegel says.so what does coconut water offer one cup can pack up to 2.6 g of fiber, siegel says, which works out to about 10 of the daily amount recommended for healthy digestion. &ldquococonut water may also offer a number of essential nutrients, including magnesium, copper, and potassium,&rdquo he continues. &ldquoin an age when consumers want both nutrients and convenience, coconut water makes it easy to have both.&rdquoeven better, it pleases the palate with its sweet, nutty profile. and for manufacturers worried about processing challenges and shelflife issues, rest assured formulationfriendly formats await. &ldquofor manufacturers who need coconut water with a long shelf life,&rdquo siegel suggests, &ldquothe powdered form would be their best bet.&rdquo 
