247. The Hidden 6-Figure Mistakes Hiding in Your Packaging

0:00Foodbevy:Welcome to Startup to Scale, a podcast by Foodbevy. I'm your host, Jordan Buckner. Join me as I talk to aspiring entrepreneurs, seasoned industry experts, and everyone in between as we unlock the keys to growing from startup to scale.

0:18Foodbevy:Small issues in packaging can easily become six-figure mistakes, mis-deadlines, regulatory violations, or thousands of mislabeled products sitting in a warehouse or real things. I've been there myself when I ran T-Squares. We once had a full run of printed bags where the design was wrong on one of the SKUs and didn't get updated. And actually fixing that would have cost us weeks and thousands of dollars and ended up just having to put bad packaging out in the market. It wasn't catastrophic, but it was something that I saw every time I looked at the packaging. So today I'm talking about how to avoid those nightmares with someone who built an entire business around doing just that.

0:57Foodbevy:Maureen Dollars, the founder of Complete AQBD, which is a packaging transition specialist in North America. Maureen brings years of experience as a former brand manager, helping both large and emerging CPG brands navigate complex packaging transitions from design updates to regulatory compliance and everything in between. Maureen, welcome to the show. I'm looking forward to talking with you. Thank you, Jordan. Thanks for inviting me. So let's start with kind of the main pain points. Why are packaging transitions usually a recurring nightmare for CPD brands? And what's usually the reason behind brands needing to make a packaging transition?

1:32Well, there's several reasons why they can be so challenging. One of the main reasons I've experienced is incomplete scope of work. So usually the focus is on the primary packaging. So usually the label or the curtain. But packaging transitions can often impact secondary packaging. So that can be your case, whether or not there's a pouch inside a curtain. It can also have an impact on your digital assets and whether or not the team needs, you know, revised mock-ups and assets for their sales presentations. And also another reason is, is that a lot of individuals, this falls into the hands of brand marketing.

2:15They're responsible for working with the cross-functional teams to facilitate these packaging transitions. But quite often, these transitions land as another project for a brand manager. And brand managers, their primary responsibility is, you know, driving sales and brand awareness. And this is not usually a priority project for them. So quite often it's a not an afterthought, but they have a lot of other responsibilities during their regular work and having a packaging transition added to that. It's very tedious. It's a lot of attention to detail. You have to work with the cross-functional teams and quite often things can get missed.

3:06Foodbevy:I remember just with my company, T-Squares, we went through maybe five different packaging designs just on the core product itself within a five-year span, let alone having to launch new products in different sizes and variations. And so there's a lot of opportunities, I think, for little things to get lost within that process. You know, I'm kind of curious, like, what do you see as some of those most common and costly mistakes that companies are making when they are going through that transition? Maybe they're updating their main packaging design. What are things that they're doing that maybe is getting lost or mistakes are happening?

3:42Well, I think one of the main things is not involving the right people at the outset of the project. So when we work on projects, we work with the entire cross-functional team. And one key element of that, particular in food and beverage, is working with your regulatory team. Jordan, as you know, I'm sure through your experience, regulatory, there's a lot of rules in terms of where the volume or the net weight is, the size of font on packaging. And in my experience, a lot of marketing individuals, they go through this process without consulting the right individuals in the company. And then these things delay the process because these things are caught during the updates or when the artwork is routing through the system.

4:27Foodbevy:You know, that's kind of interesting because in my experience, founders are going to maybe a branding or design agency to update their packaging. And even those that focus on CPG, they're not as familiar with all the regulations, especially per product, per category, where there's a lot of nuance and things that are necessary. and especially a lot of the listeners here, they don't have regulatory teams who are looking at these things. And so, you know, they're not even aware of the things that they may or may not need on their packaging until they kind of do it. And someone tells them like, hey, you actually can't talk about it this way or they get a notice saying that they're stating something incorrectly.

5:06Foodbevy:Do you kind of see that a lot where people are putting products out and they're like, oh, they didn't even know they can't say something or talk about something in a certain way? Yeah, I've seen that on a regular basis, But I guess I'm fortunate with many of the companies that I do work with, they do have a regulatory team. And what we often do is when we are working with a new company is we get to know your product line, have a look at the packaging and set up guardrails for the graphic design team to let them know, you know, this has to be a particular size. This has to, you know, the net volume, net weight has to be in the lower 30 percent of the PDP, et cetera.

5:44So, you know, we go through a lot of those and, you know, we do work with some regulatory people as well.

5:50Foodbevy:So you found a complete acuity to really solve this problem of helping companies through this transition. What gap did you see in the marketer within companies that no one else was addressing? I guess the gap was is that being a brand manager myself and working through some of these projects, as a brand manager, you're so focused on so many other projects. The packaging transition can really be a full-time job in itself. And there's a lot of attention to detail. It can be very tedious. And you have to be really on top of all of your deadlines in order to meet the release date to the printers. And just because an individual may be in marketing doesn't necessarily mean that they're detail oriented or they like that type of work.

6:38A lot of them, not to stereotype, but I mean marketing managers, as I mentioned before, their main responsibility is driving awareness in sales. So they do a lot of programs with agencies, promotional programs, working with the sales team. So at the retail level, they are driving sales. They can be doing social media programs as well. So, I mean, all of those take a certain amount of detail and attention. But a packaging transition is very time consuming and quite often can be left to the wayside a bit.

7:14Foodbevy:So let's talk numbers a little bit because you just referenced how much time it can take. And I know it varies probably pretty widely based on projects. But where do you see on like the shortest end and maybe some of the longer, longest and maybe like averaged as well for projects? Like how long does do these packaging transitions really take? Well, it depends on scale. One of my clients, they will start probably 18 months in advance of a transition. It can also depend on a regulatory change. If there's a change in supplier, I have a client now where their supplier is no longer making an ingredient.

7:51They found one other supplier that can supply it, but they have to change the packaging because that particular supplier, it triggers an allergen on the ingredient list. So that has to be addressed. So it all depends. Some of them can be, I would say, minimum, usually about six months.

8:11Foodbevy:And then how much do these packaging transitions cost a company? I know just in terms of kind of estimates and all depends on the size. And then, you know, what are some of the costs if it goes wrong? Well, it all depends because, I mean, again, it's in terms of scale. And then if your packaging transition, if the artwork can release on the deadline, well, the cost is much smaller. But I mean, you have a whole scale of individuals within an organization. There's also one of the most important aspects is supply chain. And they have to figure out what the transition timing is based on running out of components.

8:53And that can be tricky because you have a minimum order of quantity of, say, for example, cartons or labels, which may not match your minimum order quantity of cases or other components. So it all depends on the brand. It could be a write-off of maybe as little as$1 ,500 per skew, or it could be a write-off of$20 ,000 per skew, all depending on what those components are.

9:19Foodbevy:Yeah, I like the story that you referenced in terms of the company that had to change ingredient suppliers so they had to update their packaging. When does a company need to update their UPC number to align with like a new product change or packaging change? And when can they keep the UPC number the same, even just generally, so that it doesn't trigger other issues when they're selling to retailers? I think the UPC change, if you're changing the packaging size, I think it's within 20%. And that's the CU or the consumer unit at shelf. You can keep the same UPC. But if it goes, if it varies beyond that, then there's a UPC change.

10:03Foodbevy:You know, it's interesting because I've also found that even with brands who are still figuring out their products, maybe they are testing and market even doing, you know, I've seen brands up to, you know, millions of dollars and even some larger brands now that we see having to change out major ingredients in their product as well. How do you think about brands navigating that transition if they do need to put a UPC in market? Do you help them at all with like that transition to getting the new UPC in store where they're currently selling and how that works? Or is that more on the sales side?

10:34Be more on the sales side. So usually the companies that I've worked with, the request for UPC goes through supply chain and master data management. And then that new UPC gets generated. And then that information, it comes through me ultimately when it gets updated on the packaging. But then that information gets communicated from marketing to the sales team so that they have to update certain forms at the retail level and then go through that process.

11:07Foodbevy:What role do external forces like global trade wars, FDA label regulations play in forcing brands to update their packaging? Well, the FDA, they come up with new guidelines on an ongoing basis, and then those get adapted at the state level. So once they get adapted at the state level, then the manufacturers have a certain period of time in terms of implementing those changes at retail. And then in terms of global trade wars, global trade wars have had a significant impact on profitability at companies. There have been streamlining of workforces. And also it puts a strain on supply chains. So, for example, if a particular ingredient, as we talked about earlier, it may be a little bit too more expensive at a particular supplier because they may be importing it from another country and therefore it's impacting your profitability.

12:10And in terms of sourcing other suppliers, that can be very challenging as well. And then, as I mentioned, it could trigger an ingredient allergen change. It can trigger a change to your nutrition panel as well. So that would have to be updated.

12:28Foodbevy:You know, like as you're going through this process, what is your role look like as you're working with companies? I know you said there's usually a multifunctional team, discipline team that you're kind of working in between. Are you really more like a project manager who's taking everyone along to make sure this gets done timely and correctly? Are you kind of doing more of the logistics and working or more on the strategy side? Like, how do you view your role as you're coming into companies? Well, when we work with a new company, we sit down and talk about the project. And our role is somewhat project lead, but quite often for a lot of these projects, and it may depend on the size of the company.

13:05supply chain usually is the driver of these changes because they will do not only the transition of components, but they also work with the planners in terms of when production should happen. So we take our lead from them. My role and our company role is really working as the marketing person and we work as an artwork project lead and we work with the cross-functional teams. So say, for example, we set up a weekly meeting and so we work with the team in terms of what all the changes should be, get the information from regulatory, and then we'll create a brief. And that'll, depending on the project, that may go to the graphic designer first, or it'll go through our APS system.

13:53And then we'll work through what those changes are. Then depending on the project, I'll have a meeting with marketing and then show them what the updated artwork looks like and then get their sign off. And then it'll go right through the artwork project management system.

14:12Foodbevy:That's really good to see. And just in terms of understanding that whole process, kind of going through that, I know you probably have stories of companies of all different levels, but without, of course, naming the companies, do you have a favorite success story where there's a brand that really nailed their packaging transition with your help? Yeah, I worked on a new visual identity project with a company. And at first, it was a bit challenging because ideally, they probably should have started the project maybe three to six months earlier. But with a lot of hard work and planning and cross collaboration with the team, we met the deadline.

14:47Foodbevy:That's really exciting. And then how about on the failure side? So what's the story that's maybe taught you or maybe your client has learned through a tough lesson in terms of something that really was an obstacle to them getting a new packaging off the ground? Well, one of our first large projects, we were working with a brand team and it was really challenging to understand the scope of work. And by that, I mean how many components were part of the project. It's not only the DU, but as you know, Jordan, every DU can have, well, usually a minimum of two components, your consumer unit and then, of course, your distribution unit being your case.

15:28But there can be additional components as well. So it was a bit challenging because the team was very new. The company had just gone through a reorg. So it was a bit challenging. We did meet our deadline, but there was a lot of extra support required. And that was fine. That's what our team does. We're happy to lend extra support to the team so that they make sure that they release our work on time.

15:54Foodbevy:Now, a lot of our listeners are under$10 million in sales. They're more emerging brands. What are the top three steps they should take before starting a packaging transition to increase their odds of success? Well, initially, I would reiterate, understand your scope of work. It's not only your primary path. Does your case need to change? Any other components need to change? What impact does your artwork transition have on any digital assets? When will your sales team need those assets? Are any packaging mock-ups required? So that would be key. Plan well in advance because no matter how long you think you do have, there's always going to be some hiccups along the way.

16:42And also make sure that you involve everyone that you need to in the process, whether that's not only the marketing and supply team, but also involve regulatory. Quite often, we work with graphic designers, marketing does, and we will say, okay, can you make this logo a little larger? Can you place this here, place that there? But then once regulatory sees the artwork, which is usually at pretty much the final stages when you're doing a graphic transition, they'll say, sorry, you can't put that there. It's too close. You know, on either side of the net weight, you have to have the space of two ends and one end on top.

17:26So there is that buffer zone around net weight, net volume. So you have to be very careful in terms of how you place things on your PDP. Net weight, net volume also has to be visible at retail shelf. So you can't have it over to the side. You have to have it on your primary display panel and it has to be visible. So there's a lot of those key elements that will save you headaches down the road. And it's better to have those conversations up front.

17:54Foodbevy:Yeah, that's really helpful, Maureen. I really like that. Looking forward, what trends or regulatory shifts should brands be preparing for as we move into 2026 and beyond? Well, I think with Make America Healthy Again, I think there's a lot of trends there. I know we've all seen the changes to additives. And I think there's probably more coming. There's more research being done on ultra-processed foods, and I think we have to be prepared. But at the same token, usually FDA provides a lot of advance notice, usually about 18 to 24 months in advance. But we just have to keep our eyes and ears open as to what those changes are going to be.

18:38Foodbevy:I love that. Thanks so much for being on today. To our listeners, if you're planning a rebrand or packaging rollout, don't wait until something breaks to bring in someone like Maureen. Packaging transitions can be complex, but with the right process and partners, they don't have to derail your business. And so you can learn more about Maureen and her team at CompleteAQBD.com or connect with her on LinkedIn. And if you enjoyed this episode, share it with a fellow founder. It might just save them from their next packaging disaster. Maureen, thanks so much for being on today. Thank you so much, Jordan.

19:07It was a real pleasure.