Great River Brewery Becomes First US Brewery To Sleeve Label Cans

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An interesting package design that eliminates pre-printed cans in favor of blank cans with a printed sleeve that fits over the can.  Detail from Packaging Digest:

Where GRB makes its mark in packaging is that, among the more than 2,100 breweries of all sizes in the U.S. (according to Wikipedia), GRB stands alone as a packaging pioneer: It lays claim as the first brewery to sleeve label cans…

From the start of its packaging operations, GRB staked its entire business, which has been doubling almost yearly, on cans using printed sleeve labels from Multi-Color Corp. The label film is 50-micron polyvinyl chloride, reverse-printed flexographically in up to 9 colors.

For the first year or so, GRB used precut sleeves until it turned to automatic sleeve labeling and rollstock sleeve labels last summer. That's when its operations really got rolling-within a month's time a new filler was also installed (see sidebar below).

Krutzfeldt, a native of Louisiana who later relocated to Iowa to attend college, says that an order of about 5,000+ printed sleeves arrives in roll form in a box about the size used for Western-style boots.

"The warehouse space savings is huge versus even one pallet of printed cans," he emphasizes. "I can order as many different SKUs of sleeves as we need without having dozens of pallets sitting around or printed cans getting damaged."
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