T.H.E.M. Helps Nutritional Industry Make the Stick Pack Transition

Marlton, NJ – Stick packs are already a staple of the packaging world. While the food and beverage categories are the biggest proponents of single-serve, go-anywhere convenience, the stick pack phenomenon is starting to mushroom in new soil. And the commitment being made to stick packaging by Garden State Nutritionals, a leading national and international custom nutritional manufacturer, is proof positive that single-portion packaging is the new wave of the future in yet another major product category.

According to Peter Hefele, senior vice president of Garden State Nutritionals, the company has a healthy mix of flexible stick packaged products in its pipeline. “We currently produce, and have clients marketing, numerous products available in the stick pack,” says Hefele, “with several others in various stages of product development. All will be marketed through traditional national and international channels of distribution with heavy sampling support and an ad budget for each.”

Making it easy for Garden State Nutritionals is the company that brought stick pack technology to the U.S., Technical Help in Engineering and Marketing (T.H.E.M.) of Marlton, New Jersey. In fact, you can credit T.H.E.M. for having a hand in almost every stick pack product on the market in North America today.

“Garden State developed a strategic alliance with T.H.E.M in order to deliver to its clients the industry’s best-in-class packaging solution focused on portability. Together we are stimulating unprecedented growth in new products and condition-specific categories,” explains Hefele.

Hefele credits his business development and product development teams for identifying the need to use stick packs and for following up on recommendations that identified T.H.E.M as the company to bring Garden State into the age of portion-perfect packaging.

“T.H.E.M. has done wonders in supporting our reputation in the area of customer service,” says Hefele. “They’ve been terrific in every phase of product development, including R&D, regulatory and supplier/component management. And they haven’t needed much lead time at all, going from test phase to batch development in a matter of weeks. I can honestly say they exceeded my expectations.”

That’s saying something considering that expectations have been pretty high for T.H.E.M. of late. T.H.E.M. was recently honored as one of the packaging industry’s “Most Influential” by Packaging Strategies magazine.

Of course, T.H.E.M. has a reputation for rising to expectations. The company recently increased its production capacity by almost 50% to meet the demand for stick packaging products in just about every conceivable form. As many in the industry will tell you, anything that can be put in a jar, a can, a carton, a tube or a bottle can be put in a stick pack. Formats can include liquids, pastes, creams, agglomerations, lotions, and gels. And the nutraceutical industry has product in every one of those forms and consistencies.

One reason why T.H.E.M. has been such an influence on the packaging world is the company’s willingness and ability to help marketers get into stick packaging without getting over their heads. T.H.E.M. is the only U.S.-based company that enables marketers to test and evaluate stick packaging in small volumes. Each of T.H.E.M.’s packaging suites is equipped with state-of-the-art HEPA air handling systems with humidity control.

It’s also well known in the industry that all of T.H.E.M.’s facilities meet the industry’s highest standards for quality and consistency, and include comprehensive laboratory support to evaluate, test, and launch products in flexible stick packaging. In other words, they are perfectly suited to repackage the world of neutraceuticals into handy stick packs.

Neil Kozarsky, president of T.H.E.M., offered his perspective on why the nutraceutical industry can’t get its product into stick packs fast enough. “When you put a product in a stick pack, no one but the end user touches that product before it is used, and each pouch can be made to hold the exact portion for one use, explains Kozarsky. “There’s no guesswork when it comes to how much you should use, and there’s no waste.”

So what’s after the neutraceutical market for T.H.E.M and their stick packs? According to Kozarsky, the real model for the future of stick packs in North America is Japan and he should know. He brought the technology from Japan only a few years ago. “Stick packs are already very popular in the nutraceutical, vitamin, and pharmaceutical product categories in markets beyond the U.S., especially in Japan and Europe,” says Kozarsky. “But we’ll catch up.”

As a matter of fact, T.H.E.M. is already working with a number of pharmaceutical companies. Kozarsky explains, “They recognize that if we can meet the quality control demands of the food and nutraceutical markets, we can meet their needs as well.”

Founded in 1973 and located in Marlton, New Jersey, T.H.E.M. has served as the gateway for North American companies to find innovative packaging solutions. By monitoring packaging trends globally, T.H.E.M identifies innovations from all over the world and has put them to work for a wide range of companies in North America.


For more information on T.H.E.M.’s products and services, please contact:
Colleen Morrill
T.H.E.M.
5A Stow Road, Marlton, NJ 08053
Tel: 856-988-8436, x47
E-mail: sales@them.net

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